Fundraising Update

Cross posted from ICPR's blog, The Race is On:

Pres came in last night (or this morning) for just about all candidates, giving us the first full look at fundraising for the General.

Hot races:

In the senate the top races seem to be the 52nd (Myers/Frerichs), where the candidates are evenly balanced financially; the 49th (Demuzio/Richey), where they’re not; the 22nd (Roth/Noland), the 33rd (Axley/Bond), and 46th (Russell/Koehler). In the House, it’s the 107th (Granberg/Cavaletto), the 92nd (Schock/Spears), 91st (Smith/Dagit), 71st (Boland/Haring), 101st (Flider/Cain), and 75th (Gordon/Briscoe). Not counting the 112th, where Hoffman has a ton and Kugler does not.

Not races:

11 of the 39 Senate seats are uncontested, meaning that one out of six voters won’t really have a choice for the state Senate. In the House, 56 of 118 contests are uncontested, meaning that almost half of all voters won’t have any choice there. And it’s worse in judicial races, where fully half of the Appellate Court seats and 36 of 57 Circuit Court seats give voters no choice on the ballot. Some seats are won with money; others, by lack of opposition.

Killer Donor

Killerspin has emerged as a reliable Democratic donor. In the last two years, not only have they sponsored championship table tennis teams (ping-pong to novices) around the globe, but they’ve given $58K to candidates, all of them Democrats, including $27K to Todd Stroger, $15K to Rod Blagojevich, $10K to Alexi Giannoulias, and $2.5K to David Miller.

Check back to ICPR's website in the coming days for updates on the hot races, top donors, and more.