Progress Illinois

Successful incumbent U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (9th) had a message for progressives last night after it became clear that the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Alexi Giannoulias, lost to GOP candidate Congressman Mark Kirk. Citing the desire of some Republicans, including Kirk, to repeal the health care reform bill, Schakowsky said "don't mourn, organize." Watch her message:

A few weeks ago, we profiled the education advocacy organization Stand For Children, an Oregon-based group with relatively amorphous goals who established an Illinois affiliate in September and then proceeded to dump $650,000 into eight state legislative campaigns. In total, SFC donated more outside cash to candidates than every PAC except the Illinois Education Association and split their contributions pretty evenly between Republicans and Democrats. In some races, their dollars made up the biggest proportion of a candidate's war chest.

How'd their endorsees do? It was a mixed bag. As you can see from our tally below, SFC pushed three Dems across the finish line (and four if state Rep. Keith Farnham's lead holds), lost state Rep. Mark Walker's race big, and helped keep the other three likely losses (two Democrats, 1 Republican) extremely close:

-Higgins ($175,000): Down 657 votes with 97 percent reporting
-Hutchinson ($100,000): Won by 10 points
-J. Gordon ($100,000): Won by 24 points
-Rauschenberger ($100,000): Down 495 votes with 99 percent reporting
-Farnham ($50,000): Up 736 votes with 98 percent reporting
-Flider: ($50,000): Lost by 607 votes
-Walker ($50,000): Lost by 8 points
-Biss ($10,000): Won by 10 points

It's still too early to tell what type of impact these expenditures will have on state policy. Hutchinson, for example, told the Wall Street Journal that she supports "tougher tenure rules but also higher pay for educators." Don't be surprised if education is a hot topic in Springfield this winter.

The campaign for GOP gubernatorial nominee Bill Brady has announced a press conference at 10:30 a.m. to discuss the still-undecided race for governor. If Brady forges ahead, he certainly has an uphill climb ahead of him.

As of this morning, Gov. Pat Quinn lead by over 8,000 votes statewide. The remaining 70 precincts yet to be counted are all in Cook County, as well, which tilted heavily in the Democrat's favor. On top of that, the Cook County Board of Elections told ABC 7 they have at least 20,000 additional absentee votes still unopened. Chicago proper reportedly has 6,000 more. Other counties across the state still need to tabulate provisional ballots, overseas and military ballots, and mail-in absentees, but the odds are stacked heavily against the Bloomington Republican.

UPDATE (10:52 a.m.): At a news conference in Bloomington this morning, Brady refused to concede, saying his campaign will wait until the election is certified by the state Board of Elections