After the Illinois House Republicans met late last month in Springfield to elect a new caucus leader, several members gathered at a local watering hole to toast their top dog, Representative Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs).

Notably, several members who backed the candidacy of Representative Raymond Poe (R-Springfield) showed up as well and heartily shared in the festivities.

And so a leadership battle that for a while looked to be heading down a bitterly negative path ended with smiles all around. Durkin managed to pull off the impossible.

I had heard that Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner's longtime personal and business connections to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel were "killer" issues among GOP primary voters, so I commissioned a poll.

The question I settled on is pretty mild in comparison to what could be used in a TV ad, so the response may turn out to be even worse for Rauner than the Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll shows, if that's possible.

"Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for a candidate for governor if you found out he was a friend and political ally to Chicago Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel?" 1,102 likely Republican-primary voters were asked on August 13.

A truly astounding 83 percent of Republicans said they'd be less likely to support that candidate. Any time you see a "less likely" response above 80 percent, you can pretty much figure that the target is toast. But maybe not in this case.

State Senator Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago) was apparently taken aback a few weeks ago when his standard public comments about not ruling out a race for governor were taken as a dramatic sign that he might very well run.

The public reaction should've been predictable. The most recent Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll, taken in mid-July, had Governor Pat Quinn getting just 38 percent of the Democratic-primary vote. That's pretty awful for an incumbent. Bill Daley, who made his exploratory candidacy official last week, was at 33 percent.

That leaves a lot of wide-open space for a new challenger. There is a very definable path for Raoul to do well here. And while he might not win, he'd likely set himself up for a future statewide race - possibly the 2016 U.S. Senate primary - if he runs a credible campaign. There really just isn't much of a downside, so let's look at his path.

Governor Pat Quinn is leading his sole Democratic-primary rival, and challenger Bill Daley will have some serious problems with his blue-chip résumé, according to a new Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll.

The poll of 1,394 likely Democratic primary voters found Quinn leading Daley by five points, 38-33. That's exactly where the two stood in a January poll. A June poll had Daley leading Quinn by a point, 38-37, but since then Quinn has made some popular moves, including vetoing legislative salaries out of the budget and using his veto powers to rewrite the concealed-carry bill.

The most recent poll was taken July 17, a day after Attorney General Lisa Madigan shook up the race by announcing her decision not to run for governor. It had a margin of error of 2.6 percent. Cell phones made up 28 percent of those called.

Twenty-eight percent of likely primary voters were undecided, suggesting that there is plenty of room for movement by either man and possibly an opening for someone else to enter the race.