Michigan, Ohio and Illinois voters have had their chance. Now, it’s Wisconsin’s turn.
Wisconsin State Capitol
Voters in the dairy state go to the polls on Tuesday to cast ballots in the Republican primary. We’d love to hear how you voted, and what’s the most important issue on your minds.
After you vote, take our survey (or if you’ve already voted early, let us know now). It will help us understand whether different topics are of importance to people in different parts of the Great Lakes.
Illinoisans are casting their votes today in the state’s Republican primary. If polls are correct, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is heading for his first blow out victory in a Midwestern state. 
He had unexpectedly close contests with former Sen. Rick Santorum in Michigan and Ohio, which made the Illinois primary more important than most political watchers thought it would be.
Illinois has 54 delegates up for grabs, fewer than Ohio, but more than Michigan. Romney has a strong organization in the state, while Santorum failed to file full slates of delegate candidates in four Congressional districts. If he were to upset Romney, he could win no more than 44 delegates, the Chicago Tribune said. Continue reading
Republican presidential candidates are making their final push in Illinois before tomorrow’s primary. They’ve flooded the airwaves with advertisements. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney alone has spent nearly $4 million in the state, according to the Chicago Tribune.
But Illinois firefighters have countered with their own anti-Romney ad, paid for by their union, the International Association of Firefighters.
The ad focuses in part on SAFER, a government program that provided $10.2 million in grants to Illinois communities last year to hire or retrain firefighters. Continue reading
Next Tuesday is the illinois Republican primary. But today, Illinois is the center of the political universe (not that it doesn’t always think it is).
Two Republican presidential candidates and President Obama are all in the state today, looking for votes, and in the case of the president, money.
Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum makes two stops in Arlington Heights today, with three downstate on Saturday.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney hit a Rosemont restaurant Friday morning, with more stops planned ahead of Tuesday’s election.
Obama, meanwhile, spoke to a fundraising luncheon in Chicago before heading to Atlanta.
Not to be outdone, Newt Gingrich was in Illinois on Thursday. His performance in the state could determine whether the GOP race narrows to Romney and Santorum, or whether it remains a three-way contest.
Gassed up Ohio will get a new $900 million natural gas processing plant, as the state’s boom in shale-gas drilling continues.
You’re next, Illinois Mitt Romney’s poor showing in Alabama and Missisippi seems to have heightened the importance of next week’s primary in Illinois. The Chicago Tribune reports the Romney campaign just bought another $1.35 million in ads in the Chicago market.
Politics behind consent Yesterday was a big day in the city of Detroit, as Michigan governor Rick Snyder released a proposed consent agreement to handle the city’s budget crisis. Partner station Michigan Radio takes a look at the politics behind the proposal.
Mining a new strategy Even though a controversial piece of legislation to allow mining in northern Wisconsin failed to get enough votes, and the company that wanted the mine has pulled out, some state Republicans are still fighting for the cause.
Ohio gets the bronze The Labor Department reports that Ohio had the third-largest increase in jobs in January. Only New York and Texas saw more jobs created in the first month of the year.
Camera-ready Partner station WBEZ looks into Chicago’s volatile, but growing film industry.
Republican candidates are wrapping up a busy weekend of campaigning before Michigan’s primary on Tuesday. But Rick Santorum is going where few have ventured — Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Santorum was set to hold a campaign rally at noon ET in Marquette, marking a rare visit by a candidate above the Mackinac Bridge.
The vast majority of candidate visits have been to southeast and western Michigan — not surprising, since that’s where the vast majority of Republican voters are located.
But, the U.P. has a Republican congressman, Dan Benishak. He took the seat vacated by veteran Democrat Bart Stupak in 2010. (You might remember Stupak for backing President Obama’s health care program.) Continue reading
It snowed overnight in Michigan, providing an icy backdrop as Republican presidential candidates kicked off the final weekend of campaigning before Tuesday’s primary.
Things got off to a quick start. United Auto Workers members gathered on a downtown Detroit parking garage rooftop Friday morning, staging a protest in advance of Mitt Romney’s speech to the Economic Club of Detroit.
Our friends at WXYZ-TV are broadcasting Romney’s speech live. The lunch is scheduled to begin at noon ET.
Romney is speaking at Ford Field, normally home to the Detroit Lions, as polls show he’s taken a slight lead over Pennsylvania’s former U.S. senator, Rick Santorum.
The Five Thirty Eight blog says Romney now has a 67 percent chance of beating Santorum on Tuesday. Its calculations show Romney taking 41.1 percent of the vote, with Santorum getting 36.4 percent. The next closest candidate is Ron Paul with 11.9 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich with 9.3 percent. Continue reading
About midway through Wednesday night’s Republican presidential debate in Mesa, Arizona, moderator John King of CNN turned to a topic that’s front and center in the Michigan primary: the auto bailout.
It momentarily turned into a free for all between Michigan’s native son, Mitt Romney, and Pennsylvania’s former U.S. senator, Rick Santorum, over what kind of help the federal government should have given the auto companies. You can read and see CNN’s coverage here.
On Thursday, President Barack Obama’s campaign jumped into the fray with a new television ad that began airing in Michigan, which holds its primary next Tuesday.
The ad, called Made in America, contends Republicans turned their back on the industry in 2008 and 2009, when the automakers went to Washington for federal assistance. Continue reading
