Coronavirus threat mutes state primary season’s end
Suburban voters hold key to Democratic presidential race
What at one time had looked to be a traditionally raucous final weekend before a St. Patrick’s Day Illinois primary has turned eerily silent, with parades, rallies and door-knocking giving way to phone banking and social distancing amid the threat of COVID-19.
Instead of concern over Russian hacking of election systems, as occurred in Illinois four years ago, the threat is about a bug — a dangerous virus whose potential for contagion prompted state officials to encourage voters to cast a ballot by mail or vote early to avoid crowds at polling places on Tuesday.
“We’re very serious when we say vote once and wash your hands early and often,” Chicago Election Board Chairwoman Marisel Hernandez said, playing off the cliche, “Vote early and often.”
After city and state officials canceled Chicago’s traditional St. Patrick’s Day parades — a staple of election year campaigns as politicians jostled for front-of-the-line photo opportunities — suburban communities followed suit. Then, candidates across the ballot abandoned even small rallies and get-out-thevote gatherings in favor of volunteers working the phones from their homes.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Saturday urged candidates to stop in-person efforts to get out the vote to help contain the spread of coronavirus, saying she was “fully aware that this is not an ideal situation for campaigns.”
“There are plenty of organizing tactics available that don’t involve in-person contact such as phone banking, texting out the vote and other virtual communications practices,” she said. “This is a time to put safety over politics.”
For local candidates lacking the big money for TV ads, the lack of face time with supporters and potential voters left them scrambling to try to use social
media or email to get out their final message.
As city, county and suburban election officials sought to switch some polling places, largely those on private property or in senior living facilities, Hernandez said the events are “unchartered.”
That leaves questions about voter turnout, which among Democrats has ramped up in earlier primary states, as well as about the voting apparatus that includes poll workers and judges who traditionally are older.
Such questions and concerns have taken much of the oxygen out of politics just days before an election that could decide the fate of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ insurgent bid for the Democratic presidential nomination against former Vice President Joe Biden. Both men canceled planned Illinois rallies in recent days.
Biden enters the week as the front-runner and presumptive favorite to take on President Donald Trump in the fall after racking up delegates over two weeks of significant victories.
With Louisiana postponing its April 4 primary, Biden officials sought to counter fears in Tuesday’s voting states. Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, issued a statement saying that election officials working with public health officials are demonstrating “our elections can be conducted safely.” Those voters feeling healthy “please vote on Tuesday,” she said. Those at risk, she said, should get absentee ballots.
Chicago Board of Elections officials said the combination of early votes and votes by mail was already running ahead of 2016 figures with Saturday, Sunday and Monday — always big days for early voting — still remaining. Vote by mail figures had tripled, the board said. Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough said voters in the county’s suburbs were on track to surpass 2016’s early vote record. She extended weekend hours at all suburban early voting locations to run from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
There are 155 pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July coming out of Illinois — 101 of them to be selected by primary voters from throughout the state’s 18 congressional districts, and 54 decided by the statewide results.
Big wins by Biden in Illinois, as well as Florida, Ohio and Arizona, which also vote Tuesday, could all but make Sanders mathematically ineligible to overtake the former vice president in the race for the 1,991 convention delegates needed to win nomination.
Chicago’s suburbs have always played an influential role in state elections and look to do so again in Tuesday’s Democratic primary — despite a long but evolving history from being a hotbed of Republicanism to swing status.
Four years ago, Hillary Clinton narrowly won Illinois over Sanders — by roughly 2 percentage points, or about 40,000 votes out of more than 2 million ballots cast.
But that victory, which earned her only two more national nominating delegates than Sanders, came largely from voters in Chicago and Cook County, where she ran up a 96,495vote advantage out of nearly 1.2 million votes.
Statewide, Clinton won only 23 of the state’s 102 counties and only one in the collar counties, Lake, and that by fewer than 5,500 votes. Sanders won the remaining collar counties: DuPage, Kane, McHenry and Will, though the region only netted him 17,240 votes.
In previous primary states, Sanders has done poorly in suburban areas, while they have become a source of strength for Biden, exit polls showed.
In the suburbs of Michigan last Tuesday, it was 54%-36% Biden. Biden’s suburban totals were also strong in the March 3 Super Tuesday states that rejuvenated the former vice president’s campaign: It was 49%-27% in Virginia, 35%29% in Massachusetts, 44%-30% in Minnesota and 44%-33% in Tennessee.
Sanders did win in the suburbs in a few states: 32%-26% in California and 26%-17% in Colorado, and he split Texas with Biden, with each getting 33%.
In addition, overall
Democratic turnout in the primaries is up from 2016 levels, and much of the increase is attributable to the suburbs.
But the question for Democratic candidates is what kind of suburban voter will turn out on Tuesday.
Will it be more progressive types who back Sanders, who helped fuel the victories of Sean Casten, of Downers Grove, and Lauren Underwood, of Naperville, in two longtime Republican suburban/exurban congressional seats? Or will it be more moderate Democrats favoring Biden, an incarnation from what had been socially moderate suburban Republican women who have been alienated by Trump?
“We know there’s an increase in (early vote) turnout, but it’s not clear where they’re landing,” said Kristina Zahorik, president of the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association and chair of the McHenry County Democrats.
“One day it seems with conversations with friends, ‘It’s Biden all the way,’ or the reverse and ‘It’s Bernie all the way.’ I’m not sure we know,” said Zahorik, who has not endorsed a presidential candidate.
Zahorik noted that in 2016 Clinton was a polarizing figure, either loved or hated by voters, and neither she nor Trump was an incumbent.
“There was a certain amount of animosity” toward Clinton, she said. Now, with Trump in office, “unlike the last go-round, there are people willing to band together” against the president — a factor that could be helping Biden with suburban voters, she said.
Christopher Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, also cited the potential Trump factor for a coalescing around Biden among the important demographic of suburban women.
“It’s because the suburban women are afraid of Trump and want to go with a safe candidate. They do not like Donald Trump in the least little bit . ... We’re starting to get to the point where people are saying we’ve got to focus on November,” he said.
“Generally, the suburban women and the swing voter in the state are socially liberal and fiscally conservative,” Mooney said. “In the case with Bernie, he’s not really a fiscal conservative.”
That makes it imperative for Sanders to make a stronger showing in the Chicago suburbs than four years ago, encouraging support not only from women voters but also generating a larger turnout among his younger supporters who in earlier states have not shown up in the record numbers he promised.
At the same time, Sanders will need to try to hold down Biden’s demonstrated support among African Americans in the city and suburbs.
“I’m not so sure I know who is voting” in the suburbs, Zahorik said. “I’ll just be happy when we know the nominee.”
“One day it seems with conversations with friends, ‘It’s Biden all the way,’ or the reverse and ‘It’s Bernie all the way.’ I’m not sure we know.” — Kristina Zahorik, president of the Illinois Democratic County Chairs’ Association and chair of the McHenry County Democrats