Where there's a Will, there's a way

I recently had the chance to talk to both Democrats running for State Representative in the 92nd district. This is the Peoria area district that became an open seat when incumbent Republican Aaron Schock decided to run for U.S. Congress.

It's an interesting race and will be one of the most hotly contested districts in 2008 so I decided to write a brief overview for those who aren't from Peoria. For more gritty details there are a number of posts at Peoria Pundit.

The Republican running to replace Aaron Schock dropped out of the race so there's currently no Republican candidate. Many people suspect that its being held open for Schock in case he loses the Republican nomination for Congress, but either way I'm sure the Republicans will recruit someone credible to stop the district from switching parties.

The two Democrats running are Allen Mayer and Jehan Gordon. Mayer is a member of the county board and works for Comptroller Dan Hynes. Gordon works at Illinois Central College and once worked for Barack Obama.

You may recall that Obama and Hynes ran against each other for US Senate in '04. I don't know how much Obama or Hynes are involved in helping either candidate. Hynes won Peoria county by a small margin.

Jehan Gordon was recruited to run for the seat before Aaron Shock announced his campaign for Congress. Allen Mayer joined the race later, after it became an open seat.

Any time an incumbent retires it attracts new candidates who wouldn't otherwise run so there's nothing surprising or unusual about what Mayer is doing. Its also not surprising that it caused some hard feelings among those backing Gordon. Adding to the drama, the fact that Gordon is black and Mayer is white rubs some people the wrong way.

I don't know either candidate too well but I was very impressed by them. Both are young, energetic, smart, passionate and forward thinking. Both are raising money, campaigning hard and have important endorsements. I have no idea who's going to win but Democrats are going to have a good candidate for the district regardless of how the primary turns out.

My opinion, in contradiction to the current conventional wisdom, is that this race will be competitive even if Aaron Shock loses the Republican primary and runs for re-election to the House. West-central Illinois has a history of supporting moderate Republicans. After seeing his record in the General Assembly, and some of his statements during the Congressional campaign, voters may decide that Schock is too conservative for the district. He'll have the same problem if he wins the nomination for US Congress.

This is one of the downstate races to keep an eye on.

Correction: The Republican candidate for the Illinois House, Cindy Ardis-Jenkins, has considered dropping out of the race but her name is still on the ballot for now. Sorry about the mistake.