Benumbed by more negative TV ads than any election in recent memory, suburban voters head to the polls today to decide whether to keep or dump their governor and offer the final word on a trio of hard-fought congressional races whose outcome will help determine whether Speaker Dennis Hastert and the Republican Party hold on to power.

With political scandals dominating the landscape and perhaps $20 million spent on negative ads in the governor’s race alone, the state could be hard-pressed to match the 52 percent average turnout in a nonpresidential election.

Republicans were trying to motivate their core supporters, whose polls showed were less enthusiastic than usual, while Democrats used the prospect of taking back Congress to try to get their backers out.

Polls may open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. today, but the night’s biggest story might be whether the election comes off without major technical glitches both in Illinois and especially the rest of the nation, where new electronic voting equipment will be used for the first time.

Cook County and the Chicago Election Commission experienced major problems tallying results in the March primary, but officials claim they’ve corrected the problems.

All six statewide offices are on the ballot with the governor’s race serving as the headliner. Voters will decide whether to keep scandal-plagued Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich or replace him with the Republican he spent more than $15 million to vilify in TV attack ads, Judy Baar Topinka. Green Party candidate Rich Whitney has been drawing 10 to 15 percentage points in polls despite voters not knowing who he is, a likely sign they’re displeased with the two major-party choices.

Blagojevich and Topinka had similar itineraries Monday, starting out shaking hands with commuters at downtown train stations and then crisscrossing the state on small airplanes.

Blagojevich, addressing a Springfield crowd of state employees and union workers, touted his first-term accomplishments of expanded access to preschool and health care.

“We should do for the next generation what the generation before us did for us,” Blagojevich said. “Now is not the time to go back, now is the time to keep going forward.”

Topinka tried to downplay remarks she made Sunday in Bloomington in which she suggested Blagojevich should manage the Cubs because both are “losers.” Blagojevich called on her to apologize, but no apology was forthcoming.

“He needs to pay attention to state government. That’s what I’m doing,” she said in Chicago, adding that issues like corruption and the state budget were more important.

Green Party candidate Rich Whitney stopped in Springfield on his way back to Carbondale, downplaying the revelation first reported in the Daily Herald that he was an active member of the national Socialist Labor Party for 18 years ending in 1993.

Occupying the top spot on the ballot will be congressional contests. Plano’s Hastert is trying to continue what’s been the nation’s longest-ever reign for a Republican House speaker. He’s trying to swim against the national political tide this year and few pundits give him a chance to keep control of the House and the clout for Illinois that comes with it.

Democrats, who need a net gain of 15 seats to topple Hastert, brought firepower to a trio of suburban House contests. Democratic U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama campaigned for 6th District Democrat Tammy Duckworth of Hoffman Estates, 8th District Democratic Rep. Melissa Bean of Barrington and 10th District Democrat Dan Seals of Wilmette.

The Seals rally featured several hundred supporters at Waukegan Regional Airport.

Obama praised Seals for making a strong run despite the popularity of Republican Rep. Mark Kirk in the district.

“I know a little bit about folks not believing,” said Obama, a who as a respected-but-unheralded state senator rose to national political stardom in 2004.

Kirk, a three-term lawmaker from Highland Park, greeted commuters at the Arlington Heights Metra station in the morning and headed downtown to do the same in the afternoon.

The 6th and 8th district races are among the most expensive in the nation with an estimated $10 million being spent on each race by both parties and their associated interest groups.

While Duckworth and Bean basked in the Obama-Durbin glow at rallies in Elmhurst and Grayslake, respectively, 6th District Republican Peter Roskam of Wheaton took Duckworth to task on Social Security. The 6th District race to succeed retiring Rep. Henry Hyde of Wood Dale is internationally watched because Duckworth is an anti-war Iraq war veteran who lost both legs in a helicopter crash.

Eighth District Republican David McSweeney held a news conference across the street from Bean’s rally at College of Lake County to criticize Bean for telling voters she’s a moderate but taking support from a partisan liberal like Durbin.

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