Big special election today
There’s a special election today for Denny Hastert’s old seat in Illinois (Hastert vacated it when he retired midterm a few months ago). You can read all about it here.  The district is similar to NY-29 in that is has a Cook PVI of +5 Republican, but the Democratic candidate, Bill Foster, is leading the Republican, Jim Oberweis, in some recent polls. The NRCC and DCCC have already poured about a million a piece into the race.
This race has important local implications, because the DCCC and NRCC are likely to make some of their fundraising decisions based on how this race and other special election races goes. If special elections go poorly for Republicans, as this one might, the NRCC might write off NY-25. Their inability to recruitt a top-tier candidate is already a sign that Republicans may not seriously contest this race. The fact they have 27 other open seats to deal with — nearly all of them more favorable for Republicans than NY-25 is — will also play a role here.
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That one mil is a good percentage of the total cash on hand for the NRCC. They just can’t afford to contest every race. Maffei just might may end up with a token opponent, and Kuhl might not get a gratis sniper ad this cycle.
Yeah, it is a lot. Since the DCCC figures to have about 3:2 or 2:1 cash-on-hand edge come November (it’s more like 8:1 now but it will even out a bit presumably), any time the NRCC matches the DCCC dollar-for-dollar on an open Republican seat, it’s a bit of a Democratic win already.
[...] biggest national political news of the year so far is Democrat Bill Foster’s stunning win in Illinois’ 14th Congressional district — Denny Hastert’s old district. The victory has been chalked up to all kinds of things, [...]