(Politico) - Ben Carson lands in Chicago for fund-raising on Thursday, but with a week until petition circulating begins, he’s among the top three presidential contenders who lack solid organizations in Illinois.
Carson, Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina are seriously lagging more established Republican presidential candidates — Jeb Bush, John Kasich and Marco Rubio — in laying a foundation in Illinois.
“I don’t know that Trump gets on the Illinois ballot,” Republican strategist and former Illinois GOP chair Pat Brady said, in an interview. “Absent a significant organization, you’re just not going to get it done in this state.”
Brady is backing Gov. John Kasich of Ohio. But other top Illinois Republicans are making similar predictions.
Illinois Republican chairman Tim Schneider, who is remaining neutral in the primary, told POLITICO that potential delegates for Bush, Kasich and Rubio have called the state’s GOP headquarters to volunteer for those campaigns.
Not so for Trump.
“I can’t tell you we know right now who to contact if someone wants to be a Trump delegate,” Schneider said. “I’m not sure the Trump campaign understands the complexity of having delegates in every congressional district.”
A Trump spokeswoman did not immediately respond for comment.
Petitions start circulating Oct. 8 and candidates have until January to get them in.
But the rules in Illinois are daunting, especially if you’re a Republican in this mostly blue state. That’s because each candidate needs three to four delegates in each congressional district who are willing to collect signatures on petitions for themselves and get signatures for the candidate.
This includes the deep blue swaths of the state where Democrats rule.
Brady said Trump “asked all the usual suspects” to be delegates, but “they all turned him down.”
Schneider said the total number of signatures is “significant,” but said he believes Trump, Fiorina and Carson can still make the cut-off — if they get going soon.
Illinois has a Republican governor — Bruce Rauner — for the first time in more than 12 years. Rauner and the senior elected Republican, U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, are remaining neutral in the presidential primary contest.
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