(upbeat music) (dramatic music) - Welcome back to "Capital View," your weekly look of the happenings inside and outside the Illinois state capital.

I'm Jennifer Fuller.

Our guests this week are Dan Petrella of the Chicago Tribune and Kent Redfield, an Emeritus Political Science professor from the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Gentlemen, thanks for joining us.

- Good to be here.

- Thanks for having me.

- It's not hard to figure out what we'll start talking about this week as the Illinois primary is, for some, finally behind us, but the analysis, the impact, of course, that's all just really starting to become clear.

Let's talk about some of the big picture items right off the bat.

Wins for Darren Bailey, Tom DeVore, Dan Brady, Mary Miller.

What does this mean for the establishment Republican party in Illinois, Dan?

- Well, I would note that Dan Brady, despite the fact that he was not part of the slate backed by billionaire Ken Griffin actually is sort of an establishment Republican figure.

He was running on his own in Secretary of State, really ran away with that race, but the others are indeed anti-establishment, far right conservatives, who have really sort of poked the eyes of the Republican establishment in the state.

I think it's gonna be very fascinating to see whether, you know, sort of the more traditional, moderate, Illinois Republicans who have made up the establishment wing of the party for decades coalesce around these candidates or whether they sort of leave them out there on their own to run their own races.

- Kent, are you surprised at all by any of these winners or, in some cases, losers?

- The polling, you know, got to be pretty consistent.

It was pretty clear Bailey was gonna win.

The Miller race had a much bigger margin of victory.

It didn't surprise me that she won.

Yeah, the Attorney General's race, you know, nobody knew who the candidates were, or particularly cared, I guess.

And the whole thing is really an indictment of the state of the, the state Republican party in Illinois.

I mean, it has no money, no organization.

They did not put forward an endorsed candidate to run for the U.S. Senate.

They'll get a person in Salvi.

Who is reasonably mainstream, but that, you know, it looked like that wasn't going to be the case.

And so the fact that Ken Irvin felt that he could come, or I'm sorry, the fact that Ken Griffin felt he could come in and basically finance the whole Republican slate for statewide office, again, is his indictment of the weakness of the statewide Republican party that suffers from having no one in office and a really diminished funding base if you take away my billionaire versus your billionaire.

So it's not good, either short term or long term, in terms of thinking about the prospects for the Republican party in Illinois, even though they could have a decent, you know, a decent general election given how bad the national trends are.

- You open the door for campaign fundraising, campaign finance, which is your area of expertise, Kent, and $50 million from, for the Richard Irvin campaign, for that slate of candidates.

And it appears that all of it was for not.

What are we gonna see in terms of spending over the next three, four, even five months?

- Well, we know what the governor will spend.

The governor spent $170 million between the primary and the general four years ago.

He's already rolled out at least three general election commercials within, you know, a couple on election day and one yesterday.

So the real question is the patron for Bailey in the primary was Richard Uihlein, who has financed Republican candidates, conservative, socially conservative Republican candidates, but completely dropped out of Illinois politics in the 2020 election, except for some money for, you know, the Kilbride, anti Kilbride retention vote.

And now he's back.

He puts $17 million behind Bailey.

That was enough with all of the other spending that was going on against Irvin and kind of pro Bailey from Pritzker and the, the Democratic Governor's Association.

But he could get overwhelmed.

If Uihlein is not willing to spend a lot more of his fortune than he's spent in the past.

And if none of the national money looks at Illinois and says, "We've got lots better prospects, other places to flip governor's races," then you can get buried.

I mean, you can get beat two to one if your one is big enough, you know, you can still handle that.

But if it's four to one, five to one, six to one, you know, whatever the number will be.

So it's really a question of, can you, you know, is Uihlein gonna pick up the ball.

I can't imagine Ken Griffin is gonna come back and invest in the Illinois Republican party.

- Dan, Illinois is already a reliably blue state in national elections and in statewide elections.

How much room is there for some of these Republicans to perhaps make some headway in statewide races or in some of the larger congressional or state house districts?

- Well, I think that what we're seeing is a continuation of the trend that we've seen in the last three or four election cycles where the geographic disparities are continuing to get more intense.

You're gonna see Republican candidates do well in Central and Southern Illinois, except maybe in some of the counties like Champaign, with a more liberal group of residents.

But I think that it's really hard to think about them doing well in the city and the suburbs, particularly, you know, in light of the fact that the Supreme Court has just overturned Roe versus Wade, which is, I think, an issue we're gonna talk about, and an issue that is really going to energize democratic voters and independent voters who care strongly about that issue.

- What races are you taking a closer look at that are perhaps settled, and there are some that may still be undecided, that could really be a bellwether for November?

I know there's talk of the Secretary of State's race because that's an open seat.

Also, perhaps the 17th congressional district.

- Yeah, the 17th is gonna be a really interesting one because Cheri Bustos is retiring.

She has been able to hold on in a district where Donald Trump was popular in the last two presidential elections because she is well known in the region.

She works really hard to get out and meet with her constituents when she's home in the district.

Whether Democrats are going to be able to hold onto that seat with her gone, I think, is gonna be a big question.

And I think that sort of speaks to the regional issues that I was talking about earlier, you know, sort of seeing the suburbs around Chicago turning successively bluer, it seems, with each election cycle and the rest of the state turning redder.

So I think it's gonna be, that's gonna be a fascinating one to watch.

- Kent, what about you?

What are you taking a look at?

- And part of that, you know, I think those two are very notable.

And you know, the Secretary of State race, you've got Brady, house member, been prominent in down state politics for a long time.

Giannoulias, ran for the U.S. Senate, did not win, had some considerable baggage at the time involving a corruption scandal with the financial institution his family was associated with.

And if this turns out to be kind of a Brady versus Giannoulias kind of race, then I certainly can see that's gonna be competitive.

Now, what Pritzker's intention is is that it's going to be to demonize the whole of the Republican ticket.

These are extremists.

Doesn't matter what the problems are.

These people can't solve them and he'll go after Bailey and DeVore and throw in Miller.

And so it will be how that race gets defined.

If it's just gonna be on, you know, who's the best candidate to take care of your driver's license and administer the Secretary of State's office versus are you trying to hold back the extremists from getting a foothold in Illinois.

So it's how that one's defined.

And then the 17th, if the Democrats can't hold that, that shows how, you know, what a bad year it is for the Democrats.

And they took all of their Democratic voters in downstate Illinois, and crammed them either into the 17th or the 13th district and left, you know, what was left over was rural, conservative, downstate Illinois.

And why Miller won in a district against Davis that goes from, you know, Missouri to Indiana and back again.

And the biggest town in that district is Quincy, Illinois.

I mean, so, if they can win that, the Democrats can win that, and win the 13th and hold all the districts upstate, in the suburbs and in the city, those congressional districts, they will have reduced the number of Republicans in the House by two, because we lost a seat, and they'll have increased the number of Democrats by one.

That's an incredible gerrymander.

I mean, that's, you're getting to be, you know, 70, 80% of the representation where we're much more of a 60/40 kind of state.

So that's, you know, the 17th I think is really key.

And if a district like, oh, the 11th up there where Foster, in the suburbs, has a strong candidate running against him, then, you know, you've got some places where you'll get a sense of, if the Democrats can hold off challenges in this kind of year, and maintain the Governor, Secretary of State, that's really bad news for the Republicans long term.

- Well, let's take a little peak inside the strategy over the next several weeks and months.

And Dan, is it possible for these state candidates to insulate themselves from what's happening on a national level, whether it's talk of the Supreme Court decisions that have been so controversial over the last couple of weeks, or the influence that Donald Trump still has on the Republican party as a national party, or is this something that can be a little more local or at least on a statewide level?

Is this a referendum on Governor Pritzker and his handling of the COVID epidemic, or some other state issues like that?

- I think it's gonna be a mixture of those things.

I think you're actually gonna see candidates, particularly the gubernatorial candidates, at the top of the ticket wanting to talk about those national issues.

When you're talking about Governor Pritzker and the Democrats, they are going to want to be talking about abortion rights.

They're going to want to be talking about Donald Trump and the January 6th committee and issues like that.

And on the flip side, Republicans are going to hammer the Governor on the economy, which he has, you know, frankly, very little control over.

There's not much he can do about global inflationary trends, and on crime, which is again, an issue that's happening all over the country in big cities and other places.

And I think it depends on, in terms of the pandemic, whether we see another serious wave between now and election day.

I think for the most part, except for people like me who have small, small kids who are just starting to get vaccinated, it's faded to the back of the mind for many, many people.

And unless we start to see issues with school mitigations and things like that again in the fall, I think that that's gonna less top of mind for folks than it was six months ago, 12 months ago.

But I do think Bailey will try to play up that issue 'cause it plays to his base who is still angry over what the governor did to try to control the spread of the coronavirus.

- Sure.

Kent, what do you think?

Is this a mixture of everything or is there one policy or one issue that you think will really take control in the strategy?

- No, I don't think there's, I mean, there are elections where just, you have to, there's only one thing you can talk about and it just overwhelms it.

And there's so much going on here that it's really the ability to frame issues and to frame your opponent, to define your opponent, and get your message out there.

And so, if I'm a suburban Republican candidate in a moderate district, you know, candidate for the legislature, then I'm not gonna wanna, I'm gonna emphasize being moderate.

I'm gonna disassociate myself from the top of the ticket, not talk about Donald Trump, and my opponent maybe running in it, you know, maybe pushing me in the opposite direction.

So, and again, it is resources, and it's, I mean, resources is money, but it's also party organization.

It's also groups that are very active and visible.

And so we're gonna see those, you know, the labor unions out there, the charter school people, I mean, yeah.

So the electorate is gonna be pulled in a number of different directions in terms of this and it's who can kind of command, you know, frame things and command people's attention so that it makes sense to be going in one direction or another.

The political consultants will, you know, they'll be well paid, but they will earn their money in trying to navigate this landscape.

- We'll certainly be talking about that over the weeks and months to come.

Now, one of those issues that not only will dominate this fall's election campaigns, not just in Illinois, but across the country, is the abortion issue.

Now that Roe versus Wade has effectively been overturned in much of the nation.

There are still some states that have abortion rights on their books, and Illinois is one of those.

In fact, we may see a special session just in the next couple of weeks where Governor Pritzker wants lawmakers to come back and strengthen some of the protections, not just for abortion providers, but for people who come seeking abortion care in Illinois from other states.

Dan, what's your read on that special session?

Is the support there?

Is the language already there in terms of what that legislation will look like?

- Well, I haven't seen any bills filed or anything like that yet.

My understanding is it'll be sometime in the month of July, and I think there will be support for whatever it is that they want to get done.

It's a question of how much they wanna do or are able to do and how far they wanna go.

I know one of the top priority items that I've heard about is expanding the base of who is able to perform abortion services in the state, perhaps opening that up to nurse practitioners who currently aren't allowed to do those procedures, but, you know, just to deal with the influx, as you said, of people who might be coming here from out of state, neighboring states who either have or will be looking at banning abortions.

Indiana is also supposed to have a special session coming up in the next few weeks to go the opposite direction on this issue.

So I think it's something that the Democrats here in Illinois are eager to do and eager to show that they're, you know, at the vanguard when it comes to protecting those issues and protecting the providers, as you said, and people who come from out of state seeking those services and people here in Illinois as well.

- What's the risk/benefit here of Illinois, in some cases going it alone?

It's all alone with the exception of perhaps Minnesota, I believe, in still providing and allowing abortion care in the Midwest.

Across the South, all of those trigger laws have effectively banned abortion.

And a lot of other states are considering it, as you said, Indiana is over the next couple of weeks or months.

Dan, is this a go it alone approach when it comes to the state and are there detractors or risks there?

- Well, there are definitely detractors of people, you know, in the movement who oppose abortion rights.

You'll have a major detractor at the top of the Republican ticket in the fall.

But I think what you're seeing sort of reflects at least, you know, what polling showed in the last couple president, or the last couple general elections, that about two thirds of people in Illinois support abortion rights in some capacity.

There's a wide margin of how far that should go, but for the most part, it's something that is widely supported.

And I think that's what Democrats see.

And that's why they want to emphasize this issue and try to reach out, particularly to moderate voters in the suburbs who maybe are independents who might go one way or the other in an election, but care about this issue.

Even if perhaps they're more fiscally conservative or might consider voting for Republicans for other reasons.

So I think that's sort of the political calculus on their side.

- Kent, does this issue suck the air out of the room when it comes to other issues?

I mean, we've seen polling for years and years now that say voters, while they are interested in abortion and want to make sure that they support candidates who are on their side of that issue, there are other issues that they find more important.

Are some of those gonna get lost in the mix?

- That's a possibility, yeah.

I mean, it is real now.

And that's what makes the difference.

I mean, even though we've known that, with that draft of the decision, that this was almost certainly going to happen.

I mean, it is now real and abortion clinics are being shut down in states all across the country.

Now, I mean, Illinois is about as well positioned as you can imagine in terms of enshrining abortion rights within the law.

It's not within the Constitution.

There's some talk of it's too late to do a Constitutional amendment.

There's some talk of maybe an advisory referendum, saying that do you favor codifying abortion rights or putting it in the Constitution?

There's certainly a danger of overreach.

And so if we start talking about using state money to pay people, facilitate people, traveling into Illinois and paying their expenses and all of those things.

And certainly, what the anti-abortion track will be is to say, "Illinois's too extreme.

You can do late term abortions.

We got rid of parental notifications.

We need to kind of dial it back."

And so overreach in the special session or in campaigns could facilitate that narrative.

Crime is not going away.

High gas prices are not going away.

Inflation is not going away.

And so it's gonna be an important issue.

Guns, maybe.

I mean, that'll be not directly until we sort out exactly what the Supreme Court decision might mean for how Illinois handles concealed carry, but, you know, so those are back in the mix.

But again, it is, you can pick and choose in terms of trying to decide how you can match your campaign to your district or to the state.

It's gonna be a very complex election.

- Certainly.

The big issue that a lot of people are already talking about, they talk about every election cycle, is the economy.

And over the last several weeks, we've spent a lot of time talking about choices from Boeing and Caterpillar and now Citadel moving at least their headquarters, if not more, out of the state.

We heard recently that U.S. Steel may be looking at its plants in the Metro East area, which could put up to a thousand workers, steel workers, out of a job in that area.

Still at the same time, Google is eyeing the Thompson Center to bring in a thousand workers in the city of Chicago and perhaps more in the coming years.

So what is the narrative here?

Is Illinois good for business?

Is Illinois bad for business?

Or is this really not something that can be classified?

Dan, I'll start with you.

- Well I think the narrative depends on who you're talking to.

There's obviously a loud and well funded chorus of people who have been telling us for years, that Illinois is terrible for business and businesses are fleeing the state.

On the other side, Governor Pritzker would tell you, yes, we've had some corporate headquarter losses recently that sting, but Kellogg just announced that they are opening a new headquarters here in Illinois and other companies are coming here as well.

And he would like us to focus on the net gain of jobs.

You know, I think it's hard as long as states are going to compete against each other with tax incentives and other things, there's gonna be companies that come and go.

They'll come to a state for however long their incentive package lasts and then they'll look for greener pastures.

I don't think it's as simple as saying Illinois is good or bad.

And again, abortion is an issue that the state and the city of Chicago are using to try to attract companies to come here.

So I think it's a very difficult picture, and when we're potentially headed it into a recession, I think it is going to be something that's gonna be top line for a lot of people going forward.

- Certainly.

Kent, a final word on that?

- Yeah, no, anybody, any governor would like to have all of the resources and the advantages that Illinois has as a place to do business in terms of infrastructure, people, educated workforce.

And we do agriculture and we do technology, finance, information things in Northern Illinois really, really well.

But dealing with a global economy, dealing with de-industrialization, Illinois has a lot of tough problems.

And so it's a mixed bag.

It's something you can work with, but we ought to be doing better.

- Certainly.

Kent Redfield is an Emeritus Political Science professor from the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Dan Petrella is with the Chicago Tribune.

Our guests this week on "Capital View."

That'll do it for this edition of "Capital View."

I'm Jennifer Fuller.

Thanks for joining us, and we'll catch you again next time.

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