There are stages of grief: Anger, denial, bargaining and acceptance.

Message to Illinois Senate president "Big John" Cullerton: Find a trauma counselor or an anger management specialist. Grief is coming. After Nov. 2, you ain't going to be what you used to be. You're going to spend $5 million to protect your 37-22 majority in the Senate, and you're going to be humiliated.

The reason: In 2009 Cullerton's Democrats passed a bill that raised the state's income tax by $7 billion, as well as a sales tax hike. Cullerton has promised to do it again in 2011. In voters' minds, the best way to abort a tax hike is to decimate Cullerton's majority.

A year ago the Republicans were hoping to gain two seats and neutralize the Democrats' three-fifths "super majority." Now an eight-seat gain is not unrealistic. Such a feat, giving the Republicans a 30-29 majority, coupled with Bill Brady's election as governor, would be an epochal sea change in Illinois politics.

Clearly, the Republicans are not being embraced. Instead, especially Downstate and in the outlying suburbs, the Democrats' liberalism, big spending and corruption is being repudiated.

Cullerton raised $3.7 million through June 30, and he will raise another $1.5 million. He can pump $300,000 into any endangered district. The Republicans raised $1.6 million through June, and they hope to double it. With eight seats to attack, they can allocate about $200,000 per district. Here's an analysis:

22nd District (Schaumburg, Streamwood, Elgin, West Dundee, Carpentersville): Irascible incumbent Democrat Mike Noland, who won in 2006 by 2,778 votes, getting 53.9 percent of the vote, has been a loyal Cullerton stooge, voting for tax, fee and pay hikes. He is an unabashed booster of a state income tax hike.

Republican divisions in Hanover and Schaumburg townships, coupled with rapid Hispanic growth around Elgin, turned the district marginal. It was held securely by Republican Steve Rauschenberger from 1992 to 2006, when he ran for lieutenant governor. But change is afoot. The well known Rauschenberger is running for his old seat, and Hispanics, who number 6 to 8 percent of the population, have failed to emerge as a potent force; Hispanics lost all races Elgin's 2009 election. Outlook:  The Republicans are energized. Rauschenberger will get 56 percent of the vote.

31st District (Zion, Antioch, Grayslake, Libertyville, Gurnee): In a nasty 2006 primary, longtime Republican incumbent Adeline Geo-Karis was upset by Sue Simpson by 2,147 votes, with Simpson getting 55.6 percent of the vote. After months of sulking, Geo-Karis endorsed Democrat Mike Bond, who won by 1,112 votes, with 50.9 percent of the vote.

Bond opposed Cullerton's income tax hike, but he is being attacked for backing pay hikes, $100 million in "pork" spending and a budget increase of $5 billion. The Republican candidate is Suzi Schmidt, a 22-year Lake County Board member and the board's current chairwoman. She's getting ripped for raising her pay by 25 percent over two decades. Each candidate will spend more than $300,000.

Outlook: "We should never have lost" the district, said one Republican strategist. Barack Obama won by 58,337-43,558 in 2008, and Rod Blagojevich won by 27,613-25,528 in 2006. Bond triumphed won narrowly in a great Democratic year in 2006, but he will be toast in a great Republican year. Schmidt will win by 4,500 votes.

49th District (Downstate: Carlinville, Jacksonville, Taylorville): This seat has been held by a Democrat since 1974, first by Vince Demuzio and now by his widow, Deanna Demuzio. If she wins again, she'll pass it to her son, Vince Demuzio, in 2012. But things are changing in Southern Illinois.

"Brady's going to win huge here," said the Republican strategist. John McCain won the district in 2008 by 186 votes, and Judy Baar Topinka won by 7,936 votes, with 55 percent of the vote, in 2006. Of the two House districts comprising the 49th District, one is held by a Republican and the other soon will be.

The Republican candidate, Sam McCann, a construction company owner, has run an uninspiring campaign. Outlook: An anti-Democratic, anti-Quinn anti-tax trend has put Demuzio at extreme risk. If Brady wins the district by more than 12,000 votes, Demuzio is a goner. McCann will win by 1,500 votes.

52nd District (Downstate: Champaign, Urbana, Danville): A liberal college town and rural Republican territory make it a competitive district, but a Republican held the seat for two decades. In 2006, when the incumbent Republican retired, Democratic Champaign County auditor Mike Frerichs won a three-way race by 542 votes, getting 48.8 percent of the vote. Obama won the district in 2008 with 58 percent of the vote.

Frerichs' pro-tax stance is popular with the college bureaucracy, which depends on state spending, and no Republican filed in the primary. However, Al Reynolds, a retired Navy officer, won a write-in campaign for the 2010 Republican nomination, and he has gained traction. Outlook: Frerichs is favored, but a Reynolds upset is not impossible.

43rd District (Bolingbrook, Romeoville, Lockport, Joliet): It's "mom versus the machine." Incumbent A.J. Wilhelmi, a Joliet attorney, has held the seat since 2005. Obama won the district with 65 percent of the vote, and Blagojevich won with 61 percent. But the Tea Party has surfaced as a huge factor in the race, coalescing behind Cedra Crenshaw, a black mother of two that Democrats tried to knock off the ballot. An August poll by We Ask America had Wilhelmi ahead by 40-30 percent.

Given voters' propensity in 2010 to embrace the untraditional candidate, given Crenshaw's race and gender (in a 17 percent black district), and given voter anger, Wilhelmi is at risk. Outlook: Wilhelmi has not entrenched himself. Crenshaw will shock and win.

40th District (Kankakee, Bradley, Monee, Crete and part of far south Cook County): This seat was held by Democrat Debbie Halvorson for 12 years, until she was elected to Congress in 2008. Her aide, Toi Hutchinson of Olympia Fields, who is black, was picked to replace her, beating John Anderson, a lawyer with Cullerton's firm, who was backed by the unions. The district is 20 percent black.

Republican Adam Baumgartner, age 24, opened his first Subway franchise at 18, is a local school board member, and has gotten $30,000 in union contributions. Outlook: Hutchinson has failed to enthrall area Democrats. Baumgartner will win.

  19th District (Orland Park, Tinley Park, Oak Forest, Flossmoor): Once bedrock Republican, the district has trended Democratic as the black population, now almost 35 percent, rose. Incumbent Maggie Crotty won with 76.8 percent of the vote in 2006, but Republican Adam Wojcik is running a valiant effort. The outlook: Crotty is favored.

10th District (Northwest Side, Harwood Heights, Norridge): This is this year's marquee contest, with a host of contradictions and personal animosities and with each party spending $300,000. The retiring 18-year incumbent, Democrat Jim DeLeo, resigned, and John Mulroe was appointed to replace him. The formidable Republican candidate is 41st Ward Alderman Brian Doherty. A future column will detail this race. Suffice it to say that Doherty wins if he exceeds 60 percent of the vote in the 41st Ward and suburbs, breaks even in the 36th Ward, and clears 40 percent in the 45th and 38th wards.

By taking the appointment, Mulroe earns $30,000 through January and forfeits his stature as an "outsider." Doherty is blasting him as a "quadruple dipper," as the holder of four state, city and county jobs, which includes intermittent work serving as a hearing officer for the City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District and an arbitrator with the Cook County Mandatory Arbitration Program. Doherty, as a 19-year alderman, can hardly declaim being an outsider, but he emphasizes one issue: He will not vote for an income tax hike. Mulroe will highlight Doherty's alleged occasional "impairment," but Mulroe is on record as favoring a "progressive" state income tax hike.

Outlook: "No tax hike" Doherty will win with 52 percent of the vote, by fewer than 1,000 votes.

My prediction: A Democratic Senate majority of 30-29. "Big John's" 37-22 bulge will shrivel, making him "Little John" and ensuring no tax hike. 

Attached is a 2010 vote chart, listing seven area state senators, all Democrats: Chicagoans Ira Silverstein, Heather Steans, Willie Delgado, Iris Martinez and DeLeo, Dan Kotowski of Park Ridge and Don Harmon of Oak Park. Only Steans and Kotowski occasionally resist the "Cullerton Crunch."