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9/2/2010
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8/31/2010
GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
09/08/2010
Reception for Senator Bill Brady
09/12/2010
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Meet Roger Keats
Had Enough of Pat Quinn?
Pat Quinn's Christmas in July
GOP Gubernatorial Race Neck-And-Neck
2/3/2010 9:27:12 PM
Contest Down To The Wire Between Brady, Dillard
CHICAGO (CBS) ? The wild GOP race for governor remained too close to call Wednesday, as top contenders Bill Brady and Kirk Dillard were separated by only a few hundred votes.
With 100 percent of the precincts reporting at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Brady was still ahead with 155,263 votes, which is only 406 more than Dillard.
Sources tell CBS 2 news that the race is expected to get even tighter, with Brady expected to hold about a 200 vote edge, after all of the precincts are counted.
Dillard had hoped that some of the outstanding suburban Cook polling places would help put him ahead. However, the other candidates in the race, Andy McKenna and Jim Ryan, did better than expected in those areas and took much-needed votes from Dillard.
McKenna was coming in third, with 147,587 votes, about 7,600 behind Brady. Jim Ryan came next with 130,377 votes, or 17 percent; followed by Adam Andrzejewski, with 110,724 votes or 14 percent; and Dan Proft, with 59,175 votes or 8 percent. Bob Schillerstrom, who remained on the ballot even though he withdrew from the race almost two weeks ago, captured 7,388 votes, or 1 percent.
And the race for the Democratic nomination also remained tight, although Gov. Pat Quinn declared victory Tuesday night.
At the Republican Unity Breakfast Wednesday at the Union League Club downtown, both Brady and Dillard spoke, but neither declared victory or conceded.
Brady spoke of the "grassroots support" that had increased the Republican Party's presence in the area in recent years, and called on the other candidates in the room to use it to help beat the Democratic candidates in November.
"This ticket, and our ticket around the state has no time to waste," Brady said. "The Democrats are destroying the state, and we've got to put a stop to it."
Dillard said: "There is no greater honor than to be a product of a state and then run for its governorship, and I am very proud of the way we conducted our campaign. The Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday said we were the high point of the primary season. We hope to continue that as well."
He even mentioned Brady personally as he spoke.
"Like my colleague and friend Bill Brady said, any candidate that we have on the Republican ticket for governor is head and shoulders above the taxers of Pat Quinn and Dan Hynes," Dillard said.
Late Tuesday, Dillard said he was hopeful that some of the remaining votes were coming from the Chicago suburbs, where he runs stronger than the downstater Brady.
"We knew it was going to be close,'' he told CBS 2 Vince Gerasole. "We are cautiously optimistic."
On "Monsters & Money in the Morning" Wednesday, Brady said he had run a grassroots campaign "based on volunteers, precinct by precinct, and on issues."
Brady said while he lacked McKenna and Dillard's organization and millions of dollars, he made up for it with his grassroots organization. He also said he benefited from the low voter turnout.
"In a grassroots campaign, a low turnout works in your favor, because we're the ones getting the vote out," he said.
Either way, a recount is all but certain. In a race this close, state law allows the loser to demand one.
Also late Tuesday, McKenna appeared before his supporters and refused to concede defeat and left open the likelihood of a recount.
"We are going to see how this goes,'' he said. "We want to let this continue to evolve."
A possible recount would rest on what's happening in a tightly secured Chicago warehouse and a special room at the County Building. CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot went inside on Wednesday.
Thousands of ballots are still out there and could trickle in over the next two weeks.
It's complicated. Here's a simple breakdown: there are three different kinds of ballots.
The first are the regular ballots. Right now they're being stored in a warehouse near Cicero. Election workers were still counting early Wednesday morning. They wrapped up just before noon.
Meanwhile, at the County Building in the Loop, there are about 4,500 absentee ballots stored in boxes. They've all been counted, but about four thousand more could still arrive in the mail.
There's a third category of ballots; those are called provisional. Those are ballots where a person voted in a precinct where they may not have been registered, but the person was allowed to vote. There are just under 900 of those ballots the county has to check, to make sure they are valid.
"It's a good thing because sometimes mistakes are made and instead of sending that citizen home, not letting the vote count, and then found out later they should have been allowed to vote, we let them vote, separate it and then count it afterwards if in fact we find they were duly registered," said Cook County Clerk David Orr.
So the bottom line is all the official results statewide must be provided to the State Board of Elections by Feb. 23. That's when we'll definitely know who the winners and losers are, unless there's a recount.
The Chicago Board of Elections is going through the same drill. Three-thousand provisional ballots need to be examined.
Out of more than 15,000 absentee ballots mailed to voters, 9,000 have been returned and counted. Some Chicago precincts must re-transmit ballots that didn't go through Tuesday.
Other ballots have to be re-checked because of problems, like broken touch-screen voting machines.
McKenna led all candidates in fundraising during the race, bringing in $2.2 million in the last half of 2009 and spending almost as much, leaving him with $64,000 on hand at the end of the six-month reporting period in December.
Dillard raised $1.4 million and spent $1 million. That left him with $369,000 on hand.
Jim Ryan -- the 2002 Republican nominee -- had $190,000 after raising $313,000 and spending $123,000.
Candidates Adam Andrzejewski raised $752,000, Robert Schillerstrom raised $661,000, Bill Brady took in $443,000 and Dan Proft collected $169,000.
Schillerstrom's lack of funding prompted him to drop out on Jan. 22 and throw his support behind Ryan. He said he wasn't able to raise enough money to be competitive in the final push to the primary.
That support clearly wasn't enough to push Ryan over the top.
