2010 Senate Scorecard:

There are 36 Senate seats up for grabs in the 2010 midterm elections. Through the November elections, I’ll be keeping track of which way each race seems likely to go, whether Democrat, Republican, or independent.

In Illinois, the nation’s first primary of 2010 is over. Mark Kirk (R) and Alexi Giannoulias (D) are their parties’ nominees. Illinois is a deep-blue state, but Kirk is liberal enough to win. Kirk is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership (RMSP), a group of America’s most liberal Republicans. If Kirk is elected, he will join three other RMSP senators, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and John McCain, as the most unreliable votes on any conservative issue. Kirk is rated F by the NRA and scored only 42% on the Club for Growth congressional scorecard. He has a record of speaking out against the Second Amendment and should be expected to vote against gun owners every chance he gets. In 2008, Kirk voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), voted with unions on a Davis-Bacon Act waiver, and voted to increase taxes. Simply put, Kirk is liberal enough to win Illinois-so right now, it looks like a Republican pickup in that state.