Gerrymandering has effed up the democratic process

No evidence gerrymandering is in effect here. And Gordon-Booth's immediate predecessor was Aaron Schock, a Republican.

@joepyeweed it seems difficult to beat an incumbent. I thought of those 4 races that Spain would be the most likely to get a challenge.

The best way to beat an incumbent is bring up their campaign promises and see how many they actually did. Then have TONS of cash which is the way harder part.

@ricardo :It is somewhat difficult to beat an incumbent. However, it can be done. I have been on a few campaigns where we were the challenger taking on an entrenched republican incumbents and won Some of them were from Illinois.

It looks like the Presidential and Senate primaries will be the most interesting. I'm not sure if Sanders will be a viable candidate by March 15th. I anticipate Kirk and Duckworth to win their primaries but I am not an insider so I really don't know if there is a viable challenge in these primaries.

@ricardo No viable challenger in either party. Duckworth will win. In a few months she might even be the favorite. I worked on the Paul Simone senate campaign against Percy in 1984. Percy was an incumbent seeking a fourth term . It was also the same year Reagan was reelected. The odds were heavily stacked against Paul Simon. In the final days there was a shift from Percy to undecided which bodes well for the challenger. There was no time left to do reliable polling. So we hoped for the best and Simon won in otherwise heavily republican year. That election continues to be heavily studied to see how it was done in terms of taking on an incumbent and fighting a political trend the other way. There are some people from that campaign working on Duckworth campaign. They know how to take on a challenger and they will do it.

Midwestern politics seems a lot more exciting and unpredictable than beltway or (typical) big city politics.

Incumbency is tied to money & its the money in politics that is hard to overcome. Our country would improve virtually overnight if all candidates, incumbent and otherwise, all had the same pool of money in which to campaign on.The Riverfront Park vote is a perfect example. Those city council votes were the result of influence & money in politics and not a reflection of the will of the people who elected them into office. Appointments follow similar logic.This dynamic will not change until the average voter can move beyond a flashy mail piece & 30 second sound byte. Not sure how bad things have to get before that happens but it's possible that will never happen & we as a society are virtually doomed. I tend to fall in to the latter camp. I think the lack of challengers is also a reflection of a rabid, vicious society & press who is willing to say or do anything, right or wrong, to destroy a political opponent. Fewer and fewer decent citizens with children, families, careers & professional reputations at stake are willing to risk that. We are absolutely being destroyed from within - terrorism aside. Sorry to be a debbie downer. This is why I support the candidacy of Donald Trump. I believe he is the only hope to change the trajectory of corrupt government & politics as usual. If the Dems, GOP elite, & media all hate him, but the people love him - something is going on there.

But Trump is a perfect example of the rabid, vicious society who is willing to say anything, right or wrong, to destroy an opponent. If you care about facts and hate the vicious denigration of people, there is no way you can reconcile that with Trump support.

What has Trump said that is vicious, untrue or unprovoked?

www.politifact.com/p ersonalities/donald- trump/statements/And that link doesn't cover his disgusting comments about the reporter "bleeding from god knows where", Fiorina looks, or mocking the disabled reporter

@joepyeweed All i have to say about that is you folks asked for it. We warned you and warned you and you folks kept it up. So now you have to deal with it. We released our Kraken.

We asked for it? who asked for what? I feel bad for republicans and the USA for wanting a rude boorish *** in the white house.

@joepyeweed None of that qualifies as vicious personal attacks. Calling someone low energy, or making gyrating motions, or an off-handed remark about someones face - is not vicious, although I'll give you childish. Vicious are the things they say about Trump.