IL6 and IL8 are two of the most hotly contested races in the country, the former being one of the GOP's strongest chances of holding a vulnerable open seat and the latter being one of the very few chances Republicans have this year at stealing a seat from the Dems.

In some ways these district are like a pair of conjoined twins, with the eighth district being the more conservative of the two:

Republican Henry Hyde has represented the sixth since 1974. Republican Phil Crane represented the eighth from 1969 through 2004 when voters replaced him with Democrat Melissa Bean.

A new poll from the Daily Herald shows both races to be extremely close, with Republican Peter Roskam holding a slight edge in IL6 and incumbent Democrat Melissa Bean with a slight edge in the eigth. You can find updated analyses on these races here: IL6 | IL8.

One final note. Dennis Byrne writes in the Chicago Tribune this morning about a factor that isn't often talked about but could have an impact: the perceived meddling of the Chicago political machine in the affairs of the suburbs:

If you're a suburban voter and someone knocks on your door asking you how you plan to vote in the congressional election, you might want to ask for some ID.

Chances are the ID would have a Chicago address. That's because Chicago Democrats are being recruited to work against Republican candidates throughout Cook County and collar counties. [snip]

This may not sound like much of a deal to some Chicagoans who have no use for the suburbs to start with, but suburbanites, such as myself, might not like it because we, after all, live out here in part to be away from the city's lousy schools, higher crime rates and politics as it is practiced in Chicago. Suburbs to Chicago: Butt out. Do we send in squads of suburban Republicans to work Democratic precincts? Haven't you screwed up Chicago and Cook County governments enough already? Do we need lakefront and limousine liberals to tell us how to vote?

It'll be impossible to tell until after the election whether the assistance of Chicago Democrats - particularly to Tammy Duckworth's campaign - is a huge asset or whether it turns out to be a bit of a liability, similar to the way Howard Dean's "storm" of nutters from across the country ended up annoying the hell out of Iowa Democrats back in 2003 and January 2004.

For those who have the time and are interested in delving more into individual races, here are some additional columns worth reading:

Michael Collins in the Cincinnati Post yesterday wrote about how Republican Geoff Davis, a former Army Ranger and the curent incumbent of KY4, is handling the Iraq issue. (Get the latest on KY4 here).

Mark Z. Barbarak of the Los Angeles Times profiles incumbent Republican Heather Wilson's battle to hang on in New Mexico's first congressional district. (Get the latest on NM1 here).

In this morning's Newsday, Raymond Keating takes an in-depth look at Peter King (R-NY3).

Kate Riley of the Seattle Times wishes Democrat Darcy Burner was running against Rep. Doc Hastings in WA4 instead of against Dave Reichert in the eigth congressional district.

Good news for Democrats in Connecticut 5. The Hartford Courant has a new poll showing Republican incumbent Nancy Johnson now trailing Chris Murphy 46% - 42%. From RCP's updated analysis on this race:

Today's Hartford Courant poll from the University of Connecticut shows Democratic challenger Chris Murphy ahead by 4 points, 46% - 42%. The worst news for Johnson from the Courant story is this:

Geographically, the UConn poll also shows Johnson in trouble in one crucial area of the district - the affluent, educated Farmington Valley suburbs of Avon, Canton, Simsbury and Farmington. In her past two elections, Johnson has racked up tallies of 60 percent or more in these towns. But the UConn poll apparently shows that Johnson's support there has been cut roughly in half, with Murphy leading among likely Farmington Valley voters by 52 percent to 36 percent.

This is a potentially ominous sign for Johnson, as she will need closer to half the vote in the affluent Farmington Valley suburbs as opposed to a third if she hopes to weather the storm this year. These affluent, educated voters now moving towards Murphy are Republican-leaning voters who are almost definitely upset with the present course in Iraq and are taking it out on Nancy Johnson.

Furthermore, this poll cuts against some of the other evidence that we have seen from Connecticut and could be part of a little bit of momentum Lamont has picked up the last week. The three Connecticut House districts had appeared to be shifting away from the Democrats since August and Lamont's win, but the increased level of negative news out of Iraq may be giving Murphy a critical push at the end, which is also liable to be felt in CT-2 and CT-4.

This race is now ranked #25 on RCP's House list and is considered a Toss Up.

In the battle for control of the House of Representatives, RCP currently rates 10 seats as Leans Democrat, 14 seats as Toss Ups and 21 seats in the Leans GOP column. On the Democratic side there are 5 seats in play, all rated Leans Democrat.

Using an 80% victory rate for the Lean races and splitting Toss Ups 50/50 produces an 18-seat pick up for Democrats based on where RCP sees the House races this morning. (This will obviously change as we move seats from Lean to Toss Up and vice versa in the closing days.)

Republican Seats
Leans Democrat: 10 seats x 80% Win Rate = Dems Pick Up 8 Seats
Toss Up: 14 seats x 50% Win Rate = Dems Pick Up 7 Seats
Leans Republican: 21 seats x 20% Win Rate = Dems Pick Up 4.2
Democratic Seats
Leans Democrat: 5 seats X 80% Win Rate = Dems Hold 4, Lose 1

Net Democratic Pick Up = 18 Seats

Given the fluidity and uncertainty in this election and because so many of these races are very close, a break one way or another at the end could have an exaggerated effect on the final result. A hard closing move toward Democrats could see most of the Toss Ups fall their way, as well as a significant number of the Lean GOP seats. On the other hand, a firming of the Republican base coupled with a huge GOP get-out-the-vote effort could see Republican losses considerably below the current conventional wisdom. Based on the top 50 seats, as well as the Likely seats in play, we could see Democratic pick ups as few as 7 and as high as 37.

These low and high range scenarios are certainly not the most likely outcomes, but this is not like the last two elections where you could pin the House results into a 10-seat range with a high degree of certainty.

As closely as we're all watching the polls, it's surprising to hear someone such as Newsweek's Howard Fineman saying and writing that, "...an overwhelming majority of the American public wants Rummy out." He repeated that on Chris Matthews's show on Sunday morning.

Mr. Fineman has apparently missed the new Zogby poll released last Thursday. According to that poll, "Asked whether Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be fired because of the situation in Iraq, 42% agreed, while 49% said he should not be fired. Another 8% said they were unsure." Which means Mr. Rumsfeld is about 10 points more popular than the president. It makes one wonder what it takes to penetrate the media's cocoon.

The Orlando Sentinel at the end of last week played up a poll showing Republican incumbent Tom Feeney in a close race with his Democratic challenger Clint Curtis.

The telephone survey, conducted last week by the reputable polling firm Zogby International, shows Feeney ahead of Curtis by 2 percentage points -- 45 percent to 43 percent -- among voters who have made a decision or are leaning toward a specific candidate.

Is Tom Feeney really in trouble? He won with 62% in 2002, ran unopposed in 2004 and says his internal polls show him with "a solid double-digit lead."

We'll find out how accurate this poll was in 9 days, but we suspect Tom Feeney will be back in the next Congress.

Tons of news from all around the country as we head into the home stretch: the final debate in the Ohio Senate race took place last night, as did a spar between Bachmann and Wetterling in hotly contested MN-6. In Illinois, more bad news for Rod Blagojevich yesterday as one of his big campaign donors pled guilty to taking kickbacks while sitting on two state boards. There's much, much more, all available on the RCP Politics & Elections page.

We've also launched a new page showing the current state of play in the battle for the House of Representatives. You can still access these seats ranked by order of competitiveness here.

Still on the sujbect of the House, here's a good piece of analysis on Illinois 6 and Illinois 8 from Eric Krol of the Daily Herald:

Roskam and Duckworth don't agree on much, but both campaigns do agree the race is about tied. They're left fighting for the 10 percent to 15 percent of undecided voters, and to ensure their base supporters turn out as strongly as possible.

The advantage on the undecideds would seem to break Duckworth's way -- if you've lived in the 6th District under retiring Rep. Henry Hyde and aren't the proverbial rock-ribbed Republican, odds are fairly decent you're fed up with either the war, the congressional page scandal or the economy's jobless recovery.

But the advantage on the base turnout would seem to break Roskam's way -- he's been a state lawmaker in the district and has a large corps of committed supporters.

He's also got what's left of the once-vaunted DuPage County GOP, assuming its chairman, Kirk Dillard, has forgiven Roskam for costing him the state Senate GOP leader position four years ago. It's worth noting that in the March primary, an unopposed Roskam collected about 50,800 votes -- 18,000 more than the three Democrats mustered collectively. The Duckworth camp doesn't concede the ground troops point, however, claiming the scores of college-age volunteers coming in to help give them a closer-to-even playing field.

If Roskam never pictured himself in a dogfight with a Democrat, McSweeney certainly didn't count on being down to Democratic U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean by double-digits in most polls.

Just two years ago, the 8th Congressional District voted 56 percent for President Bush. McSweeney viewed Bean's upset as more of a referendum on longtime incumbent Phil Crane than any sign of a true Democratic tide. [snip]

McSweeney's hope is to spend his own money on enough negative ads to bring Bean's numbers down and to count on the lower turnout a non-presidential year brings. Bean hasn't hit 50 percent yet, and there's a third-party, anti-war candidate, Bill Scheurer, who might pull votes from her.

Ultimately, what must be the most puzzling to the Republicans is that they cut a deal with the Democrats to draw up the state's congressional map to keep a 10-9 balance of seats. It's starting to look like they didn't draw those lines finely enough to preserve that advantage.

Get the lastest polls, news, and analysis on these races here (IL-6 | IL8).

Tons of news from all around the country as we head into the home stretch: the final debate in the Ohio Senate race took place last night, as did a spar between Bachmann and Wetterling in hotly contested MN-6. In Illinois, more bad news for Rod Blagojevich yesterday as one of his big campaign donors pled guilty to taking kickbacks while sitting on two state boards. There's much, much more, all available on the RCP Politics & Elections page.

We've also launched a new page showing the current state of play in the battle for the House of Representatives. You can still access these seats ranked by order of competitiveness here.

Still on the sujbect of the House, here's a good piece of analysis on Illinois 6 and Illinois 8 from Eric Krol of the Daily Herald:

Roskam and Duckworth don't agree on much, but both campaigns do agree the race is about tied. They're left fighting for the 10 percent to 15 percent of undecided voters, and to ensure their base supporters turn out as strongly as possible.

The advantage on the undecideds would seem to break Duckworth's way -- if you've lived in the 6th District under retiring Rep. Henry Hyde and aren't the proverbial rock-ribbed Republican, odds are fairly decent you're fed up with either the war, the congressional page scandal or the economy's jobless recovery.

But the advantage on the base turnout would seem to break Roskam's way -- he's been a state lawmaker in the district and has a large corps of committed supporters.

He's also got what's left of the once-vaunted DuPage County GOP, assuming its chairman, Kirk Dillard, has forgiven Roskam for costing him the state Senate GOP leader position four years ago. It's worth noting that in the March primary, an unopposed Roskam collected about 50,800 votes -- 18,000 more than the three Democrats mustered collectively. The Duckworth camp doesn't concede the ground troops point, however, claiming the scores of college-age volunteers coming in to help give them a closer-to-even playing field.

If Roskam never pictured himself in a dogfight with a Democrat, McSweeney certainly didn't count on being down to Democratic U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean by double-digits in most polls.

Just two years ago, the 8th Congressional District voted 56 percent for President Bush. McSweeney viewed Bean's upset as more of a referendum on longtime incumbent Phil Crane than any sign of a true Democratic tide. [snip]

McSweeney's hope is to spend his own money on enough negative ads to bring Bean's numbers down and to count on the lower turnout a non-presidential year brings. Bean hasn't hit 50 percent yet, and there's a third-party, anti-war candidate, Bill Scheurer, who might pull votes from her.

Ultimately, what must be the most puzzling to the Republicans is that they cut a deal with the Democrats to draw up the state's congressional map to keep a 10-9 balance of seats. It's starting to look like they didn't draw those lines finely enough to preserve that advantage.

Get the lastest polls, news, and analysis on these races here (IL-6 | IL8).

This is funny. President Bush went all the way to Iowa today to help Republican Jeff Lamberti in his race to upset Leonard Boswell in IA-3, and this is what he said:

This campaign only ends after the voters have had a chance to speak. No doubt in my mind, with your help, Dave Lamberti will be the next United States congressman.

Oops.

Actually, wiith the amount of campaigning the President does (as well as the other heavyweights on both sides), I'm surprised we don't see this sort of thing happen more often.

Bush's next challenge? Trying to properly pronounce Republican Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' name on Monday when he heads down to campaign for her in TX-22.

This is funny. President Bush went all the way to Iowa today to help Republican Jeff Lamberti in his race to upset Leonard Boswell in IA-3, and this is what he said:

This campaign only ends after the voters have had a chance to speak. No doubt in my mind, with your help, Dave Lamberti will be the next United States congressman.

Oops.

Actually, wiith the amount of campaigning the President does (as well as the other heavyweights on both sides), I'm surprised we don't see this sort of thing happen more often.

Bush's next challenge? Trying to properly pronounce Republican Shelley Sekula-Gibbs' name on Monday when he heads down to campaign for her in TX-22.