It would seem as if some of my major electoral predictions didn’t pan out, particularly in regard to those local referenda, so let’s take a look at those questions and a few more races.
Chicago Mayor
In yet another sign of just how problematic polling has become in the cellphone era, after no poll put him in the lead, Brandon Johnson inexplicably beat Paul Vallas by 3 points, or 16,000 out of 556,000 votes cast.
After the Lightfoot debacle, I cannot understand how those beleaguered Chicago voters went for another progressive candidate whose beyond questionable public safety and tax policies will do nothing more than accelerate the already expanding Second City exodus.
Apparently they learned nothing from their recent propensity to elect candidates who come out of nowhere and govern like that’s the only place they’ve ever been. Brandon Johnson is going to be Chicago’s worst nightmare.
Kane County Referenda
In my defense, every Kane County school/park/library referenda went down by the predicted 10 points or more, with the bizarre exceptions of the Sugar Grove Library and U-46 measures, both of which passed by an astonishing 2 to 1 vote. That’s an odd-year phenomenon I’ve never seen before.
Considering the overarching referenda defeat picture, part of me wants to say the voters didn’t understand those questions, but the far more logical answer is that both entities managed to get a reasonably effective message out to the appropriately targeted voters.
Call me crazy, but I still don’t think a “zero net tax increase” slogan is the kind of thing that sets voters’ hearts aflutter, but it certainly seems to have done the trick in Sugar Grove and U-46.
Perhaps the current Republican culture war attacks on schools and libraries have created a liberal voter backlash, but if that were the case, then why did the Batavia, Kaneland, and D301 bond issues fail – and do so fail miserably?
And Batavia’s failed by the predicted 10 percent, too, which as we discussed, doesn’t bode well for their future ballot initiatives.
Even Elburn’s new police station bond issue went down in flames by almost 2 to 1, which is equally as shocking as the two that passed by the same margin. I thought – and predicted – that conservative town would see a $9 million police expense as a drop in the bucket, but that certainly wasn’t the case.
So, were these anomalies or are we looking at a potential sea change? I’ll certainly be looking into the Sugar Grove and U-46 efforts to make that determination and better understand what made the difference.
Meanwhile, I want to offer my congratulations to both boards for beating the odds with their successful campaigns.
Author’s note:
As is customary, I spent the better part of the day after the election (and the day after writing this column) talking to savvy sources in an effort to get their take on why it all unfolded the way it did.
A couple of them told me that, while U-46’s messaging effort was generally subpar, they did a great job of engaging community activists, particularly those in their significant Hispanic community. And they were far more effective in their outreach than the district was.
With Latinos accounting for 53 percent of the district’s students, I’m convinced it was those parents who put the referendum over the top.
Meanwhile, my Sugar Grove sources told me that, though it was a sluggish campaign at times, the library did a reasonable job of targeting the likely odd-year non-mayoral election cycle voters. And even a mediocre message can be effective when it falls on the right ears and there’s no opposition group to counter it.
All that said, referenda timing as we’ve discussed it, is the single most important factor in whether the question will pass as evidenced by 71 percent of the Kane County bond issuing referenda being soundly defeated.
Elgin
At least I got these races reasonably right!
Dave Kaptain, did indeed, dispense with mayoral challenger Corey Dixon without breaking much of a campaign sweat. After those early/VBM ballot numbers dropped around 7:20 Tuesday evening, the outcome was never in doubt.
Dixon did a little better than I predicted with 3,954 (43 percent) votes to Dave’s 5,262 (57 percent), but a 14-point loss is still an unequivocal rejection of your candidacy, particularly when you consider all the time and money Dixon put into his campaign.
So, what’s the explanation for Dixon doing better than Carol Rauschenberger fared against Kaptain in 2019? Instead of the typical 7,000 mayoral voters, with some VBM ballots still likely outstanding, a surprising 9,216 Elginites cast a ballot on Tuesday. That’s a truly surprising 29 percent improvement over similar previous election cycles.
I’ll have to delve into the individual precinct numbers to see where those new voters came from, but the most likely answer is Dixon successfully mobilized Elgin’s black vote. As we previously stipulated, it wasn’t enough to put him over the top, but if that was the case, it certainly was an impressive effort.
Generally, the fastest way to lose an election is to base your campaign upon getting non-voters to vote, but Dixon clearly had some success in this regard.
Sadly, we haven’t seen the last of Corey, because as long as those at-large Elgin city council contests feature at least 10 candidates, the incumbents will inevitably win. And that’s exactly what happened on Tuesday.
Tish Powell and John Steffen were the top two vote getters, with Rose Martinez and Anthony Ortiz coming in third and fourth. So, while its gratifying to see Elgin Hispanic community better represented on the dais, the city council balance of power remains the same with the conservative Ortiz replacing the conservative Toby Shaw.
I suspect Ortiz will be a little more vocal in his opposition to the Gang of Four’s (Steffen, Powell, Dixon, and Rauschenberger) hyper-progressive agenda, but that won’t likely change many city council votes.
School Boards
I want to say I’m surprised here, but I’m really not. Despite how the current crop of school board members made some of the worst COVID mitigation decisions possible, I thought more voters would be willing to throw the scoundrels out, but that wasn’t the case as the incumbents were consistently reelected.
This can either be attributed to some very short voter attention spans, or more likely, that Illinois Democrats successfully fomented a backlash against the Republican’s stupid attempts to bring culture wars to our school and library boards.
Once again, teachers union backed board candidates won at an alarming rate which means we’ll be paying higher taxes sooner rather than later. I just don’t understand how the voters can so completely ignore their children’s and their own best interests.
No concession
Most of the traditional American niceties have gone the way of the landline, but one stubbornly refuses to be relegated to the dustbin – conceding to your opponent when an election night loss appears to be imminent.
Not only is it the gracious thing to do, but, given the ephemeral nature of political fortune, you never know when you might have to work with that former opponent down the line. So, it’s best not to let all the obvious animosities simmer past the boiling point.
I understand it’s very difficult to lose a hard-fought election, but for all of Corey Dixon’s fascinating character traits, I figured he’d be one of the last people to forgo the concession tradition, but that’s exactly what he did Tuesday night.
And he still hasn’t reached out to congratulate Mayor Kaptain as of the posting of this piece, which is a classless bullshit move. So, much for grace and respectability.
In summation
This round of First Ward political prophecies may not have been up to the usual standard, but I didn’t completely suck, either.
No one saw a Brandon Johnson victory coming and election cycle timing is still the most critical factor in any referendum’s success as indicated by 5 out of the 7 Kane County bond ballot questions being defeated.
And just when I think the voters can’t possibly surprise me anymore, the Chicago variety does just that. It’s going to be quite a fascinating four Windy City years.
