IL-Gov. 2018 Megathread

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Republicans in the House have got to be worried about the coming primary challenges should they support this veto override.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Whoever wins the Illinois governorship in 2018, will have a difficult job. It's probably one of the toughest states to be a governor in America today.

It is going to be a nasty, bitter, expensive race that could see low turnout as the state is in such bad shape. Rauner, Quinn, and Blagojevich are partly to blame.

I mean, you can make a case for partially blaming Rauner and his unwillingness to raise taxes, but I don't know what more Pat Quinn could have done. Rod Blagojevich had already screwed the state's pension system beyond repair before Quinn took office.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

If I was in the legislature, I would go ahead with the 4.95% income tax, but also raise the sales tax to either 7.5% or 10.0%, and then take the resulting revenue to use to cut back at the property taxes.

The problem is the voters would just take that hike at face value and not trust that property taxes would actually go down... and rightfully so. You can't trust anything politicians say in this sorry excuse for a state.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Ugh, I'm so tired of seeing this mistake that I finally had to say something.

The Democratic Illinois state senator running in the gubernatorial primary is named Daniel BISS.

B-I-S-S. Four letters. There is no "L" in there.

You don't have to like the guy (I wouldn't vote for him!), but at least call him the right name! Sheesh.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Even if he holds on, the fact that this is so close is an extremely ominous sign for Rauner in the general. An energized D base + pissed off hard-right Republicans is a losing combo for him.

Combined with the fact that this is an anti-Trump year...

Combined with the fact that he's running in Illinois..

Illinois actually tends to elected Republican governors, Blago was the first Dem to win reelection since Otto Kerner in 1964.

Illinois's blue shift is a relatively recent (last 25 years) phenomenon.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Serious issues with the machines in DuPage probably won't get results until tomorrow.

http://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180320/dupage-county-unable-to-count-votes-after-problem-with-voting-machine-cards

Ugh, I want this race called so I can go to bed...

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Ok, what's the deal in DeWitt County (Clinton)? Not a single vote counted there yet?

[Coolface Sock #42069]

How prominent will the name "Rod Blagojevich" be in this race? Will Rauner continue his focus on tying Pritzker to Michael Madigan, or will he switch to Rod?

[Coolface Sock #42069]

How prominent will the name "Rod Blagojevich" be in this race? Will Rauner continue his focus on tying Pritzker to Michael Madigan, or will he switch to Rod?

Why not both? There is definitely a lot of overlap in the target audiences there, but there are definitely some people who will be motivated against Madigan but not Blago, and the other way around. I don't know at what point Dems start voting for Rs against Madigan, but I really can't see Rauner running ads tying Madigan to JB depressing his own turnout or energizing reliable D voters.

I just wondered if voters would have an amnesia factor with Blago since he was removed from office way back in 2010.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Rauner's chances just dropped even further (if that was possible...):

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Source

At this point it seems like an open question if Rauner can even win as many counties as Alan Keyes did in the 2004 Senate race.

Rauner would win at least 85-90 counties no matter what (there are 102 total).

Unless there's some sort of landslide, Dem wins are probably confined to Cook, the collar counties, Winnebago, Peoria, Champaign, McLean, Madison, St. Clair, and Alexander counties, and winning all those would probably require either a significant Republican vote split or winning nearly 60% of the vote. Rauner, for his faults, is from Illinois unlike Keyes, JB is no Obama, and the state has become much more polarized since 2004.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Rauner's chances just dropped even further (if that was possible...):

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Source

At this point it seems like an open question if Rauner can even win as many counties as Alan Keyes did in the 2004 Senate race.

Rauner would win at least 85-90 counties no matter what (there are 102 total).

Unless there's some sort of landslide, Dem wins are probably confined to Cook, the collar counties, Winnebago, Peoria, Champaign, McLean, Madison, St. Clair, and Alexander counties, and winning all those would probably require either a significant Republican vote split or winning nearly 60% of the vote. Rauner, for his faults, is from Illinois unlike Keyes, JB is no Obama, and the state has become much more polarized since 2004.

Putnam, Fulton, Knox, Jackson, Calhoun, and Gallatin are far from out of the question. Durbin won all of them in 2014, and although Durbin is surely more popular downstate than Pritzker, I think that an 11-12 point win still puts them in play, which is probably the ceiling for Pritzker.

I'll agree on Gallatin and especially Fulton and throw in Rock Island, which I forgot the first time. I'm more skeptical about the others.

Dick Durbin is from downstate and actually acknowledges the existence of all 102 counties, and I am assuming JB will spend almost all his campaign in about 8 of them in the northeast part of the state. I still think voting for a governor with (D-Chicago) after his name is just going to be a hard sell for most downstaters, not because of the "D" necessarily but because of the "Chicago".

[Coolface Sock #42069]

Most predictable endorsement ever

[Coolface Sock #42069]

In debate with J.B. Pritzker, Gov. Bruce Rauner says illegal immigration contributes to Chicago gun violence


He's really going hard after those McCann votes.

Safe D now. Let's get real here.