Illinois gubernatorial election, 2006
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County Results
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The Illinois gubernatorial election of 2006 occurred on November 7, 2006. The Governor of Illinois, Democrat Rod Blagojevich, won re-election for a four-year term scheduled to have ended on January 10, 2011. However, Blagojevich was impeached and convicted in 2009. Many observers expected the race to be close, especially considering the polling, which has shown Governor Blagojevich had a high disapproval rating. However, the Republicans had fared poorly in elections since 2002 due to scandals involving prior Governor George Ryan, and the increasingly unpopular presidency of George W. Bush.
On November 7, 2005, Topinka announced that she would not seek re-election as state treasurer — instead, she entered the gubernatorial primary, hoping to challenge Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich. The Republican primary was deeply divisive; her tenure as Party Chairman destroyed her support from the conservative wing of her party, and it was feared that her pro-choice and positive gay rights positions would be detrimental to her standing with the same conservatives. In December she announced that she would join forces with DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett as a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois.
In February 2006, the candidates for the Republican nomination for Illinois Governor began running their first TV ads for the March statewide primary election. Rival candidate Ron Gidwitz's advertisements, attacking Topinka, were rebuked in the same week by the Illinois Republican Party: "In an unprecedented action, the Illinois Republican Party has officially rebuked the Gidwitz campaign for this ad because the Party found that the ad violates the Party's "Code of Conduct", which was enacted to police proper conduct among Republican candidates."
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