The Republican primary race for governor will take another step toward conclusion Tuesday, as local election authorities submit their final counts to the Illinois State Board of Elections.
The primary was held on Feb. 2, and in a late surprise, Bill Brady was in the lead, but Kirk Dillard was only a few hundred votes behind.
Some absentee and provisional ballots have been added to the tally since then, but most election authorities will wait until today to submit all their vote totals to the state.
Dillard has ardently refused to concede the race. "When you're only separated by a few hundred votes out of three quarters of a million, you never know what's in store," he told WBBM.
Meanwhile, Bill Brady is already looking ahead to November's race against Democratic incumbent governor Pat Quinn, stepping up the rhetoric on Quinn's proposed tax increases and the Scott Lee Cohen scandal.
"It boils down to the economy, jobs," Brady said at the Union League Club in last Friday. "Gov. Quinn wants to increase your taxes by 50 percent. That's just going to drive private-sector investment out of the state. I want to reduce the tax burden a billion dollars."
He should know more about whether he can make good on that promise by the end of the day.