Illinois elections, a state filled with races you can already predict.

And the immigrant story that's part of the fabric of America, now exhibited in The Cities.

[lively music] [music ends] Labor day is in our rearview mirror right now, and the November elections are ahead of us.

In two months, Illinoi voters will head to the polls.

And next week, early voting begins in Illinois.

But more and more Illinois elections are becoming preordaine because the district is heavily dominated by one party or the other.

Plus, Democrats have a firm control of many of the races.

So where is the democracy in all of that?

We talked with Western Illinois University political science professor, Dr.

Keith Boeckelman from his office in Macomb.

The old political adage is, once Labor Day is over, that's when people start getting serious about voting and the elections.

Is that still the case?

I think that's largely the case.

I think for about 80 of the population, that's true.

I think it's probably a little bit later during, midterm election years like this one.

I think people will start to pay attention a little bit earlier during presidential election years.

I think there's also about 20% of the population that's always plugged in, probably a lot of viewers of your show, frankly, that are paying attention to politics year round.

But for about 80% of voters I think that's generally true.

They don't pay attention till after Labor Day.

But I wonder also, I mean, I would think that 20% level is increasing only because of social media.

I mean, politics plays such a huge role in so much of social media these days.

Well, it does, but I think a lot of people that are not really plugged into politics.

There's this saying that, you know, X or Twitter isn't really real life, and I think there's some truth to that.

So the people who are plugged in to social media, political, social media like X or BlueSky or whatever it is, I think those people are maybe not typical of the larger population.

There is, you know, political content on all other types of social media as well, like Instagram and Facebook and so forth.

And that can be useful for candidates to help them advertise.

But I'm not sure that for the average person, they're really as honed in on that year round.

Is this 20% are.

And I think that is interesting because you look at social media and it just does seem to be i some ways of the launching pad to define a candidate either pro or con.

And we were discussing, earlier, lawn signs.

It used to be the lawn signs were a big deal to introduce people and to, test how popular a candidate is.

Now, is it more social media and traditional campaigning is is just changed?

I do think it's changed.

I mean, social media has had a couple of impacts, I think, that are important.

One has to do with fundraising.

So it's much easier to grassroot fundraise through social media and to reach small donors than it used to be.

I mean, it used to be you had to send out the mail, which is pretty expensive to, you know, to get as many people as you're going to reach.

And the people who are going to respond is pretty small.

So now, with social media it's a lot easier to fundraise.

I also think for, particularly talented candidates, social media is a godsend to get their message across.

I mean, I think, for example, like Zohran Mamdani and, New York City, the mayor's race, he was very effective in having these, sort of video clips that went out on social media and introduced him.

And I think a candidate like him would have never become mayor of New York in the pre social media age.

I also think, though, that there's still a lot of retro thinking in campaigns, and many candidates are still dependent on old time ads and on TV, and I'm not sure how well they work anymore, even though there's still quite a bit of money that goes to that.

Let's tal about the campaigns in Illinois, because the one big striking fact, I'd like to start with the congressional races, is that, according to the Cook Political Report, 14 Illinois congressional district are listed as solid Democratic and three as solid Republican.

It's like foregone conclusions in all of these, congressional districts in Illinois.

Well, I think it is this year.

You know, when this district, these districts in Illinois were first drawn, in 2022, I thought maybe the Democrats had sliced the ham a little bit too thin.

The 17th Congressional District, for example has been pretty competitive in recent years, and the Democrat Eric Sorensen has won, but and he won fairly comfortably last time, but the previous ones were a little bit closer.

But I think this year all the winds are blowing in the Democrats favor.

And so I think they're likely to hang on to all these 14 congressional seats.

The 17th district was the closest one in 2024, Sorensen won by like 54% or something like that.

There were a couple others that the victor was about 55% of the Chicago suburbs, but all the other Democratic seat they won even more comfortably.

So I think that, you know, again, given the, favorable currents for the Democrats in this upcoming election, I anticipate that they will win all 14 of those seats again.

And talking about the 17th district, I think, it's usually seen at least through the Cook Report of being, usually a Republican up by three points in the 17th Congressional District.

In other words, it is kind of a borderline Democrat, Republican swing type of district.

As you point out, Sorense winning the last few elections, Bustos having a number of years before that.

And really there was and then, Phil Hare, and then just a little period of time when it was Bobby Schilling, I mean, the Western side of, Illinois, the 17th district has a lot of beat red counties, but still seems to elect, Democratic, congresspeople.

Yeah.

Well, I think part of this goes back t the redistricting, issue again.

And so it was hard fo the Democrats to draw a district in northwestern Illinois that would favor a Democrat.

But I think they've worked over the years to cram more and more Democrats in the district.

So, you know, it goes, int Rockford now, the Quad Cities, and so really, all around northwest and even central Illinois, parts of it, to try to fin as many Democrats as possible to cram in the district.

And so this, this district historically been kind of a textbook case of gerrymandering.

One of the textbooks I use to use in my government class, they picture the 17th district as their case study or their example of gerrymandering.

And so I think that, you know, that that's what's happened is it's been continually, drawn in such a way that it puts more and more Democrats, even as the general area has probably trended a little bit more Republican.

But it did try to find more Democrats to put in the district.

Because the 17th district has had weird shape along the Mississippi River.

And then even before the latest redistricting, it seemed to have that sliver of a cla that went into Springfield area.

As you said, they were looking for metropolitan areas.

Right.

And so that's that's where the Democrats are in the bigger cities.

And, of course, you know, Chicago area, obviously there's a lot of Democrats, but, to find Democrats downstate, you have to go to these urban areas.

And that's what they did with the 17th district.

And so the surroundin districts are very Republican.

The three Republican districts that, you know, in 2024, two of them, there was no opponent.

And the third one, Mike Bosts district, he won by 75% of the vote.

So these other districts are very overwhelming.

The three Republican districts are very overwhelming Republican.

So it's highly unlikel that anyone with the Republican would lose those districts as well.

Yeah, exactly.

So does this do a disservice to the voters?

Because they don't really, let's be honest, have that big of a chance or that big of a choic among two different candidates because one party has such domination in that district.

Well, in my view, yes, it doe do a disservice to the voters.

I much prefer the Iowa syste where, the districts are drawn by a nonpartisan body and they are competitive.

So right no there are all four House members in Iowa Republicans.

But as recently as a few election cycles ago, three out of four were Democrats.

So you have competition.

Really, three of the four Iowa congressional districts are competitive.

The Far West or Northwestern one is not particularly competitive, but the other three are pretty competitive and could go either way.

And I think that's muc more beneficial from the voters.

They can express their will better if there is real competition.

Let's talk about the statewide races.

We'll start, I guess, with governor, JD Pritzker and, Darren Bailey.

Is Bailey seeing any traction?

Are we seeing any increase?

Because it seems to be a Pritzker juggernaut, with a whole lot of millions of dollars there to be spent.

Well, as we all know, Pritzker is a billionaire, so he's got a lot of money to spend, and that's to his advantage.

I think Baile this time is taking a little bit of a different tack which is a wise one, in my view, in Illinois, and that he's he's de-emphasizing social issues, sort of being an anti-abortion candidate and so forth that are unpopular in the suburbs.

And emphasizing more fiscal issues, property taxes, things like that.

So I think that's a good campaign tackle on his part.

Will it be enough?

I doubt it.

I you know, as you alluded to, he's way behind in the money race because of Pritzker's personal wealth.

There have also been some big Republican donors, like Ken Griffin, who have been involved i supporting the Republican Party financially in the past who have moved out of state now.

And so not only in the governor's race, but across the board.

The Republican Party is really behind financially.

And again, given, the the expectation it'll be a Democratic year, I would anticipate Pritzker winning again.

The one caveat I would hav is that sometimes it's hard to win a third term as governor.

The last time an Illinois governor ran for a thir term was Jim Thompson in 1982, when he narrowly defeated Adlai Stevenson in that election.

So the third time is not always a charm.

But again, I would anticipate Pritzker winning.

And how much does he have to win by in order to pave the way for a possible presidential run?

I mean, obviously he has to dominate Illinois if he wants to see any type of traction going on for a 2028 race.

Well, so I think he won by about he had about 54, 55%, when, last time, whic is comfortable not overwhelming.

I think it would be i his interest to build that, up.

So I think if he could show that he did better in this election.

So if he gets in the high 50s, say, I think that would be a, sort of a good jumping off point for him.

If he wins with, you know, 51% of the vote or something like that.

And I think that does dampen his national ambitions a little bit.

The other big statewide race, of course, Stratton/Tracy for the US Senate, to replace Dick Durbin.

And once again, Democrats expected to do well in that Senate race.

And and perhaps most likely hang on to that seat.

Yeah.

I think, you know, again given the nature of the, money in this race, given the nature, the given the fact there's going to be a Democratic year likely to be a Democratic year, I think Stratton is the clear favorite.

She has led in fundraising and also, Don Tracy has been able to raise some money, but I, Stratton also has kind of a connection to Pritzker as his lieutenant governor, and he has supported her strongly in the primary.

So I think she would also have acces to more campaign contributions from him if she needed it.

But from what I can tell, neither party at the national level is targeting this race.

And so I think both the Senate Republicans and the Senate, Democrats assum that Stratton is going to win.

So they do not seem to be putting any if many resources into this race.

Well, so I'm talking about statewide races and congressional races.

Of course, there's there's state legislative races as well.

The Democrats having supermajority in the House and the Senate.

Is it a real problem that if there isn't this big statewide race that Republicans are enthusiastic about, that it's really going to have an impact down ballot?

Yes, I think so.

And, politics has become much more nationalized in recent years.

And so in state legislative races, people vote based on the party label more than they used to.

They used to be more willing to split their party from, you know, the state level to the national level.

That's less and less true.

And so, again, if the predictions hold out, that the Democrats do well on this election and that will probably trickle down to the, state legislative level as well.

You know, I think there are a few seat in play that the Democrats could lose, particularly in kind of the exurban Chicago area, but I don't see it being enough that they would lose their super majority in either House right now.

And I just have a few moments left with you.

Are you also concerned at all about, questions of the voting results in November?

That, that that a lot of candidates may not accept the results?

Yes I think that's a very bad trend.

One of the foundational tenets of American democracy is that, peaceful transition of power.

And the losers accept the results.

In recent years you've seen that less and less.

And I think that's a real threat to our system a real threat to our democracy.

So I, I'm very troubled by that trend.

And I hope, I hope we don't see a lot of that.

I think you have seen in a lo of the primaries that candidates who have los have conceded, in both parties.

And so I hope that that continues into the general election.

Our thanks to Western Illinois University political science professor Dr.

Keith Boeckelman.

Now, Rock Island County says early voting will begin Thursday, September 24th at the county building.

And Election Day in both Iowa and Illinois is, of course, Tuesday, November 3rd.

Still ahead, the German-American Heritage Center celebrating our immigrant past.

That's just ahead.

But first, your local publi television station is launching.

Keep WQPT Strong.

It's a new campaign to help raise $1.3 million to support operations for WQPT, which no longer receive federal funding and must rely on community support.

So to become one of WQPTs 4,200 members and join the Keep WQPT Strong community funded campaign, head to our website WQPT.org Now let's check out some of th events scheduled in the cities.

Thanks to Visit Quad Cities.

[soft music] Check out the things to do this week in the Quad Cities.

Explore how cycling e-bikes and bike share innovation could help make the QC more connected accessible and visitor centric.

Then, get ready to learn how to roller skate with the help of the Quad City Rollers.

Open for ages eight and up.

Next, enjoy the only dueling pianos on the river aboard the Celebration Belle.

Experience amazing view and unforgettable entertainment.

Then ride the rails behind the world's largest operating diesel locomotive.

Finally, enjoy a Renaissance faire right here in the QC.

Music, magic, live action jousting, shopping and so much more.

For more events like these, check out our events calendar at VisitQuadCities.com [music ends] The German America Heritage Center is wrapping up a months long exhibit honoring the immigrants who built our nation.

It comes as the annual Oktoberfest celebration is ready to be held in Davenport.

And Aaron Baker from the German-American Heritage Center joined us with more.

Well, as we celebrate America's 250th, I mean, the immigrant story is so important.

It's great that the German American Heritage Center has had the, Shaped by Immigrants exhibit, which is coming to a close her in your final weeks, going on.

So, I mean, why should people see it right now?

I mean, what's the story you're trying to tell?

Yeah, I mean, I think the title of it i so simple, Shaped by Immigrants.

Of course, our goal, at the center we focus on German immigration.

But, immigrants are so important to what the nation we have today.

So that's part of the goal is to tell the story not only of German immigrants and how they've shaped the Quad Cities and and Iowa, but also just immigrants as a whole, and their impact.

And for those who don't know about the German American Heritage Center, it's the Old standard Hotel.

It's at the base of the Centennial Bridge Thousands of German immigrants, that was one of the first places they stayed in America before they moved on.

I mean, the story of that building is amazing.

Yeah.

Shaped by immigrants.

It kind of shows how, how even a building that exists right now the vast history that you have was a gateway to the United States.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

How critically important is it to tell that story at a time when immigrants aren't necessaril seen as a good thing in America?

Certainly it's super important.

And of course, that's the goal.

I mean, we're wanting to celebrate America.

I mean, that was the goal.

It's a huge birthday for our nation.

But to understand that as far back as the beginning of our nation, immigrants have been a part of of what we have today.

So.

And you look at the rich fabric of the Quad Cities because, I mean, of course, you want to talk about the Germanic story.

Yeah.

But you've got a, Belgian village in Moline.

You've got a number of different African American, groups that are here today.

And, and so it really has, I mean, the Quad Cities is a good example of at least a bit of a melting pot and also a huge wave of Mexican citizens as well.

Or, or I should say, Hispanic citizens as wel as those from Central America.

How much of that story is told... Yeah.

...in shaped by immigrants?

Yeah.

So, we actually partnered with the Putnam exhibit, Putnam Museum to provide some artifacts that relate to the impact that those groups had.

And so we feature some items, from Mexican American immigrants here to the Quad Cities.

Also some Vietnamese immigrants and various other groups as well, too.

So I think when when you look at the exhibit, you see, the fabric of, of our Quad Cities and not only the German impact because certainly we have artifacts from our, from our museum as well, but it really demonstrates the impact, at least object wise.

You can see the impact tha they had on on our Quad Cities.

And that's an important story to tell?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Of course.

Yeah.

Because, one thing we always say about, German immigration here in the Quad Cities is that pretty much everything you look at whether it's a brewery today or, or even the symphony, they are tied to German immigrants.

We can even go furthe when talking about this exhibit and say that everything in the Quad Cities could be tied to an immigrant of any background.

And America as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

If youre not a Native American.

Yes, absolutely.

Youre a foreigner in so many different ways.

You've got, Octoberfest coming up.

I have to say it that way.

It is, of course, September 19th, all things Germanic.

You got a lot of fun things going.

This beer stein holding contest, is that traditional to Germany?

You know, I, that is a great question.

I'm not 100% certain about that.

It's a lot of fun.

It's a good time.

Well, I mean, you got a you got a band that's going to be playing polka music all day long.

And I want, you're going to be from noon to seven at Kaiserslautern Square, better known as K Square than most people.

Yes.

I don't want to try to say Kaiserslautern.

How big of an event is that?

It's a true celebration.

Yeah, it's it's, really exciting event for us.

I mean, we've been holding it for quite a few years there, an and that's an important location because it's a symbol of our, our connectio with Kaiserslautern, of course, as our sister city in Davenport and so, it's a great place to celebrate German culture but just life as well, I always think.

I mean, that's the thing about German festival is they're just an opportunity to enjoy what we have, you know, available to us.

There's I mean, being German, I've grown up on beer and brat and, and people and lederhosen.

Well, I never wore lederhosen.

But lederhosen there as well.

But I've never in my life heard of hammerschlagen.

Okay, yes.

Which is a game.

Yes.

Tell me about hammerschlagen.

Yeah.

So basically how it works.

I've never played, by the way.

Oh, you are this year.

[laughter] We have like a stump and there are nail on this stump, and you put it in just a little bit to get it started.

But then the goal is that you have to, the perso who is able to use their hammer to get the nail fully embedde in the log first kind of wins, but you can only do it with one hand.

So it's interesting to watch people try... Because they think it's easy.

It is not easy though, because obviously one handed throwing a hammer is not easy.

No, not at all.

So that's hammerschlagen.

Yes.

Get used to that.

And you are going to try it.

I will.

Okay.

Because you can demonstrate.

[laughter] One other thing I want to talk about.

You're celebrating, Iowa author our Ruth Suckow.

And some people may not know much about her, but she has been describe as Iowa's first feminist writer.

Yeah, thats correct.

And it's such a great story to tell.

It's from, Humanities Iowa.

It's an exhibit that's been going throughout the state.

It's at the German-American Heritage Center through November.

What's been the reaction to that?

We're just at the beginning, but, we this is kind o a physical example of that, but, we, we, of course, have he books for sale, and people are they're just flying off the racks because a lot of people have never heard of her, but she really is an important author for our state.

So, and our region.

So, I think that shows that there's interest in her, and wanting to know more about her work.

And I know a number of Iow libraries have have played host to the exhibit at the German American Heritage Center, being the first actual museum that's doing it.

But you're, you're also doing outreach as well.

I mean, you're holding, sessions for people to almost have, like what, coffee and a book and just a nice discussion about the books that she, she made.

Yeah.

So we have a variety of programs... And I should say just books, short stories as well.

Yes.

Very much so, I should point that out.

And in fact, one of the programs we have coming up is September 27th.

That kind of pairs with that, is they, so when they, created the exhibit, they also created a reader's theater of one of her pieces called A Great Molly, one of her short stories.

And so we're a, a group of local actors, including myself, actually, are putting on, a small production of this piece.

So that's one example of how we're kind of, partnering with Ruth's stories, to kind of get that information out in a different way.

There's a book discussion, there's a book discussion group that we hold that, decided to look at Ruth Suckow, Suckows books for this particular... So if you love reading, you know, I mean... Yes.

...like I said, it's not just like these big, thick novels.

I mean, it's mostly she's well known for, for short stories.

Yeah.

But also from the feminist viewpoint.

Yeah.

Which didn't exist when she was around.

No.

So, I mean, obviously, like you said, she's Iowa's first feminist author, but she also, is known for really capturing the Midwest.

And when you read her pieces, that's very clear.

It feels like it's right out of the the land that we're living in, you know?

So even though we're separated by many years in terms of her writing, it does capture what it means to be a midwesterner.

It's amazing how she was ahead of her time in so many different ways.

Yes.

Yeah.

All right Thanks so much for joining us.

Hammerschlagen!

Be there.

Do it.

Grab a hammer, [laughter] and then go to town.

Yes [laughter].

Our thanks to Aaron Baker from the German American Heritage Center.

On the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device and streaming on your computer, thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues on The Cities.

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