As Republican candidates wait for official results, the Democratic gubernatorial primary race could finally be ending.
Last night, Illinois Comptroller Dan Hynes' staff said he will make a major campaign announcement this morning. The announcement would come after both President Barack Obama and the Democratic Governors Association congratulated Gov. Pat Quinn yesterday.
By now, all precincts in the state have reported results, and an unofficial tally from The Assocated Press puts Quinn ahead of Hynes by nearly 8,100 votes. The Illinois State Board of Elections will not proclaim a victor in the race until March 5.
Quinn's margin is slim by traditional measures, but in this race, it could be too wide for Hynes to overcome.
Jim Allen, spokesman for the Chicago elections board, said that about 5,000 absentee ballots that were mailed out have not yet been returned, and that about 2,700 provisional ballots must still be counted.
Even if each of those ballots is for Hynes, the comptroller would still lack the more than 8,000 he would need to win.
But history tells us that Hynes will fall far short of even those votes.
"Historically speaking, we're only going to see a trickle between now and 13 days from now," the deadline for absentee ballots, Allen says, "and by trickle, I'm talking in the hundreds, not thousands."
Furthermore, Allen says, about 80 to 92 percent of provisional ballots end up rejected because the people who cast them either voted in the wrong precinct or were not registered to vote at all.
The mathematical reality crashes down on Hynes as Republicans Bill Brady and Kirk Dillard stand about 400 votes apart, according to the AP's count. Dillard's campaign says the margin is about a quarter of that.
On WTTW's "Chicago Tonight," Dillard said he is in the race for the long haul, until the state certifies results in March. Brady, seated next to him on the show, said he wouldn't ask Dillard to concede, given such a close margin.
Although Dillard portrayed himself as the better candidate to beat Quinn in November, both Republicans conveyed a sense of camraderie. Their appearance on the show came after a GOP unity breakfast yesterday morning.
Such a meeting may have been badly needed in a party so clearly split in its preferences. Republican voters chose both one of their most moderate candidates, Dillard, and one of their most conservative, Brady.
That their race and the Democrats' have come to such razor-thin margins has made history in the state. Add a tight Democratic comptroller's race to the mix — David Miller won by less than 10,000 votes — and voters are left with the political fluke of a lifetime.
"There's never been a trifecta like this," Allen says. "No one I know has ever seen a primary with three statewide contests that have been so, so close."