Illinois’ Peter Fitzgerald to bow out of 2004 race

Illinois Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald will reportedly not seek re-election next year. As campaign news goes, this is pretty huge.

The story broke in this morning’s Chicago Tribune (no link available) in a story that said Fitzgerald told close associates yesterday that he had “no fire in the belly” to seek a second term. The Republican also indicated that he was concerned about the money he’d need to raise and spend in order to win. (Fitzgerald spent $13 million of his own money to help win his Senate seat in 1998.)

This news will reverberate throughout Washington. Fitzgerald’s re-election was considered by nearly everyone to be an uphill climb. Some polls in Illinois have indicated that Fitzgerald is not at all popular among voters in a state that has increasingly been leaning Democratic in recent years.

In a closely divided Senate, where Republicans hold the slimmest of majorities (51 GOP seats), the Illinois race was already slated to be one of the most closely watched in the nation.

The pressure was clearly mounting on Fitzgerald. He has never clicked with GOP leaders in Washington, and for that matter, he never really got along with party leaders in Illinois, either. In all likelihood, Fitzgerald would never have even won in 1998 were it not for the fact that his opponent, former Sen. Carol Mosley Braun, was plagued by ethics questions.

Every non-partisan election analyst in America saw Fitzgerald as the most vulnerable incumbent of either party going into next year’s election cycle.

Polling data suggested that Fitzgerald would likely lose in 2004, many Republican leaders considering supporting primary challenges to the incumbent. Apparently, the pressure was just too much for him.

For Democrats, the news of Fitzgerald’s decision is definitely mixed. There will be 34 Senate races in 2004, but only 15 of those campaigns are for seats currently held by Republicans, and three of those will probably not even have major party opposition next year. Democrats, therefore, need to pick up at least a couple of GOP seats while winning all of its 19 re-election bids if the party has any chance to take back the Senate.

While Dems certainly never approved of Fitzgerald’s performance, the party no doubt looked forward to running against a weakened incumbent. With Fitzgerald dropping out, the race is now wide open again.

The early buzz is that three Republicans will vie for the GOP nomination in this race: Retired Air Force General John Borland, business man Andrew McKenna, and Peoria Congressman Ray LaHood. Democratic primary voters, meanwhile, will likely choose between State comptroller Dan Hynes, State senator Barack Obama, Cook County treasurer Maria Pappas, businessman Blair Hull, and Former Chicago Board of Education president Gery Chico.