(bright upbeat music) - Welcome to "Capitol View."

Our weekly look at the happenings inside and outside the Illinois state capital.

I'm Jennifer Fuller.

Our guests this week are Brenden Moore, the state capital reporter for Lee enterprises and John Jackson, visiting professor at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU Carbondale.

Thank you both for joining us.

- Glad to be here.

- Glad to be here.

- Let's start with something that we were talking about as we recorded last week.

We were anticipating the debate between the GOP candidates for governor on Chicago's ABC seven WLS last week.

Now that we've had a chance to watch the debate and take a closer look, any big takeaways from having all six candidates on stage able to talk to each other and about each other?

Brenden, I'll start with you.

- I don't know if we learned anything new in terms of their policy positions.

I think a lot of their answers were very similar but I do think the dynamic was a little bit different with them all being on stage together.

I think that each candidate was trying to make a contrast between one another, trying to prove that they're the true conservative in the race.

Darren Bailey state Senator Darren Bailey, basically called Richard Ervin the perceived front runner, a liberal Democrat and confronted him directly on that.

Obviously Ervin returned fire and obviously in some of their messaging on ads and things of that nature have kind of been trying to hammer home that message to.

So I think that that's probably the one takeaway is that, it gave the candidates opportunity to address each other directly for the first and probably the only time in this campaign.

- John a debate is never a time that you want to change your communication style, change your strategy, change your message.

Do you think voters got what they expected from last week's debate?

And do you see any big shift from one week to the next?

- Not really.

I think there's not been a major story come out of it.

You wanna stand out in a crowd in a debate like that, particularly with multiple candidates and as Brenden suggested, they talked about what they've been talking about on television.

Those of 'em that are up with ads stayed on message but then got a little personal in two or three instances, especially Bailey on Ervin, Ervin on Bailey.

And if anybody would have gotten the sound bite for the next day, that would've been it.

My impression from the other end of the state is that this was a one day story and really didn't change the dynamic of the race.

- So what happens now?

We're now inside three weeks before the primary election, early voting has been going on for several weeks now.

Do you see a big increase in the number of ads, pieces of mail, things like that?

What do you expect the strategy to be, particularly among the two front runners and then for those who are hoping to perhaps move the needle just a little bit and try to gain some traction.

Brenden, any change?

- Well, obviously two and a half weeks is a lifetime in politics, but right now it seems that it is a race between Richard Ervin and Darren Bailey.

There was actually some news reported earlier in the week that Ervin was maybe recalibrating his downstate ad strategy.

They've been trying to hammer home this issue of crime and which has been, obviously people are concerned about but maybe not as concerned about as other issues and trying to I guess, recalibrate and try and get a better message if you will, which is maybe not something you wanna be doing two and a half weeks before a primary election but it may be a sign that they feel the need to have to shift things a little bit.

And obviously Darren Bailey is trying to hammer home the message of I'm the true conservative in this race, that you can't trust Richard Ervin and so I think that he's got a little bit of money now behind him, Richard Uline, a billionaire mega donor has given some money to his campaign and given some money to a super pack that's running ads against mayor Ervin.

So I guess we will see what effect that that's having.

And obviously there's the elephant in the room at the democratic governor's association and governor Pritzker obviously spending a lot of money on this race too.

And that must be having an impact too.

- Well, John, what about after the election?

We talk a lot about how the party has to come together.

You've got six candidates right now running for governor, each with a slightly different message or slightly different priorities.

How quickly do they have to come back together and coalesce around one candidate heading into the November election, particularly given that Illinois's primary is so much later this year?

- Well, that is the challenge for the party, particularly the out party to do.

And what's called a divisive primary, which this one certainly is.

The more personal these attacks get, the harder that is to do, the more it could turn off the other supporters of the number two candidate.

I think the results are pretty much baked in.

I think it'll be Ervin and Bailey as clearly the people with the most money, the most TV ads, the best name idea across the state.

I don't think the others are anywhere close in the ball game.

And if you got, for example, the Bailey forces, which are aligned with sort of the pro-Trump forces more clearly, then that group could decide to at least sit it out for the fall.

So that's the challenge of a divisive primary.

It remains to be seen whether the Republicans can put the pieces back together again, afterward.

- We spent a little time last week talking about this but I wanna touch base on it again, as we look down the ballot, several primaries in other races as well.

And because of all that money being spent in the Republican primary for governor, there's not a lot of opportunity for some of those other candidates in the other races to really make their voices heard.

Brenden, do you think that things are pretty well set in terms of this is the front front runner therefore they will win in races like secretary of state, attorney general and things like that?

- I think secretary of state is a little bit less clear on both sides.

I think that Alexi Giannoulias, the former state treasurer came in as the clear front runner with the most money.

And people may remember him from when he served a decade ago but obviously Anna Valencia got some momentum when she got Jesse White's endorsement, governor Pritzker and both the us senators, but obviously she's run some trouble with some of the charges about maybe her using her official email account to help her husband's lobbying.

Obviously Alexi Giannoulias has some baggage from his family's bank back in the day, back from the Senate race, he ran against Mark Kirk in 2010.

So both of them are, you could view as flawed candidates.

And obviously there's David Moore, who's running as well the Alderman from Chicago but he doesn't have a whole lot of money and name recognition.

So we could go either way with Giannoulias or Valencia.

I believe we're both on air right now.

And on the Republican side that's another intriguing race between state rep Dan Brady from Bloomington and John Milhiser, the former us attorney for central Illinois.

And that's kind of interesting because Milhiser is the quote unquote slate candidate, part of the Griffin slate of candidates.

He just went on air, I believe about a week ago.

And so he hasn't really had the chance to get his name ID up maybe as much as you would expect for somebody who's supposed to be backed by a billionaire.

Brady's been crisscrossing the state for over a year, has a really good ballot name and he is first on the ballot which I know political scientists will say, doesn't matter but political operators you talk to say it's good for a couple of points here or there.

So that one go either way too.

And honestly that's the only open race on the ballot right now in November.

And so if it's a good Republican year nationally, that could be an opportunity for the Republicans to maybe get a full hold in state government, not having to worry about the incumbency advantage that you might have with some of the other races.

- Sure.

John, let's talk a little bit about that, incumbency versus it being a midyear, a mid-term election.

Do Republicans stand a chance in Illinois of perhaps gaining a statewide officer too?

- I'd be surprised.

I think it's gonna be very difficult although I think this could be a wave election and anything can happen if it is a way for the Republicans, but I don't see a really vulnerable place that the Republicans are likely to pick up a statewide office.

I think where that will happen most directly is in those close congressional districts that some of 'em are new.

For example, the Sherry Booster's district, or for example the new 13th and central and downstate.

Those were designed to be competitive leans Democrat.

If it's a Republican wave, both of those will probably be gone for the democrats.

Back to the Giannoulias and Valencia, I think Giannoulias still is probably the favorite in that race because keep in mind, he's run statewide twice.

He won one and lost one.

He's got some bumpy relationships within the party but I'm guessing that he'll be the strongest one there.

And I think the interesting question finally on the Republican side is will the whole Tim or Ken Griffin slate win as a slate, because they are a slate.

And if the mayor wins, mayor Ervin wins, then that slate's got a decent chance of carrying it all.

But again, Dan Brady certainly got a decent shot at that for earlier experience.

So that one would be the one that would be most likely to go and lose at least one out of that slate it seems to me.

- And again, the primary is June 28th, early voting is open now.

It's perhaps never too early to start thinking about the next election.

And there are conversations going on right now between the city of Chicago and the Democratic National Committee to take a look at conventions potentially for the next presidential run in 2024.

John, how strong a chance does Chicago have at bringing the DNC to Chicago?

- I think it's got a decent shot at getting both the convention and the prior question is can they get to be the first primary in the Midwest because DNC is trying to rearrange the primary calendar.

I think they've got a very good chance of doing that.

I've always written about this and said that Iowa and New Hampshire were terrible places to start and they're not representative of anything but Iowa and New Hampshire.

So that's the first question.

If they can win that one, they can also have some chips for winning the convention, but whatever happens I think Iowa and New Hampshire are done as the first two.

We've got a decent shot at getting that midwestern slot.

Michigan would be the only other contender.

And if we get that, we've got Illinois a better chance of getting to be the host because you want a state and a city that are controlled by your party.

You've got democrats in the mayor's office, democrats and governor's office.

So all good reasons why Chicago will be in the running.

- You mentioned that Iowa and New Hampshire are perhaps only representative of Iowa and New Hampshire.

What about the argument that Illinois might only be representative of Illinois?

- Well, Illinois is a big industrial state.

It certainly leans blue in all of the presidential elections.

There is however the fact that economically all kinds of social indicators, diversity, we're still one of the most representative states in the country, although our politics certainly are more blue than the rest of the country.

- Brenden, how does this play in terms of the state legislature which would have to vote to move its primary.

We've done this before when Barack Obama ran for president, then of course we're moving this year's primary because of COVID concerns and other issues.

Is this going to cause a lot of dust up per se in the state house?

- I wouldn't imagine so.

I think that as you said, this has been done before and I don't think that there'll be...

The legislature's proven they've been willing to move the primary for one reason or another.

And the fact that this would be earlier I think actually might be a little bit better.

I think some lawmakers probably did not like having to have such a late primary, have that hanging over their heads as they they wrapped up a budget and all these things.

But if the primary say gets moved back to February or whatever it is, I don't see that being an issue.

And as John said, Illinois has so many perceived advantages that would make it a very strong candidate to have won of the first primaries.

- Sure, sure.

John you're coming off the publication of a new paper for the Simon Institute, another Simon review which takes a really hard look at the change within not just Illinois, but nationally, where politics has moved from all politics being local to perhaps all politics being a little more national.

What impact is that having on the race here and the race elsewhere, not just statewide but congressional and local races as well.

- Well, the old tip O'Neil AISM all politics is ultimately local is vastly outdated.

This is about the nationalization of our politics from the white house to city hall, to the courthouses which I think pulls on everything that happens whether it's running for president, governor, senator and down in the county level races.

So my colleague, John Foster and I took a careful look at that.

We looked at the 2020 outcomes for president Joe Biden, of course, winning and Senate Dick Durbin winning and then the graduated income tax.

And the interesting thing there is Ervin and Biden carried 14 counties and the same 14 counties.

Durban got 55% of the vote, Biden got 57.5% of the vote.

All of the rest went to Trump and all the rest went to Curin.

That's on both the polarization theme and the nationalization theme, the best way to know how a county's going to vote next time is to look how they voted last time.

There is almost no difference now because of both polarization and nationalization.

We then went back and looked at the start of all this in the 1990s, Bill Clinton running against Doe, Bill Clinton got 64 counties and he got 57% of the vote, Dick Durban running for the first time got, I believe it was 55% of the vote and he won 51 counties.

Can you imagine a Democrat running for president our Senate getting either 51 or 65 counties, that shows you how much the parties have realigned geographically.

But interestingly enough, the percentage of the vote Dick Durban got in 96 is very close to the same as the percentage of the vote he got in 2000, all these years later.

Only 14 counties produced that in 2020.

And that's because the Democrats have traded geography for people and the Republicans have traded people for geography.

It's a bad deal for the Republicans at the national and state level, but it's a really bad deal for the Democrats at lots of local levels in both central and Southern Illinois.

Used to be in Southern Illinois there were Democrats everywhere, particularly in those county courthouses.

Now outside Jackson county you can't find a still standing Democrat hardly ever in all of southern Illinois.

That's a part of that realignment that took place in Illinois and nationally.

So we contend that Illinois is a good bellwether of what's happened nationally on both polarization and on party realignment.

But the question in conclusion is will this work under the separation of power system which comes from the 1790s?

And the answer seems to be democracy is not working very well, particularly at the national level because of polarization because of the nationalization of our politics, we can't deal with the big issues.

Congress gets the routine stuff done most of the time but look at immigration, look at what to do about guns, congress fails to be able to do anything.

- Brenden, do we see similar trends?

Do you think in the state house where because the Republicans cover so much geography but not so much in terms of population that you see some of those same issues.

There's a lot of kind of banging our heads against a wall, they can't seem to get their their message through?

- Absolutely.

I think that especially at the past few cycles we've seen basically Republicans be completely shut out of the budgeting process of having a lot of their bills be considered because quite frankly they don't align with the the majority party's views on so many issues.

And that's not how it used to be.

I mean, as John alluded to, he used to have Democrats like Brandon Phelps or Gary Farby from conservatives, from Southern Illinois that gave some ideological diversity to the democratic party and maybe gave some of those voters more of a voice and a legislature but they were all replaced by Republicans and then by the same token, a lot of suburban voters voted out Republicans and replaced them with Democrats, which basically concentrated more of the power in the democratic party, even more than it was in Chicago and in the big Metro area.

And then you have very red down state, besides a few, smaller Metro areas down here.

And so certainly that is a frustration that I hear among lawmakers in my areas because a lot of my markets are represented by Republicans and they'll talk about how they cannot get their issues heard in the general assembly, which it's a math thing.

It's a democratic state, democrats have the super majority and in this cultural divide in this state, this regional divide has really exacerbated that.

- What about more moderate?

- If I could just add, I wanna underscore the suburbs have become the key and the transition is because of the transition in the suburbs more than anything else.

And that's where the races won or lost statewide and nationally and nationally suburbs have become the key.

- And perhaps the answer to my next question lies in the suburbs as well.

What about a more moderate voice?

I hear people all the time saying, "Well Gee I don't feel represented by anyone on the extreme side of this issue or on the extreme side of that issue but I'm not hearing anyone in the middle, talking about compromise, talking about ways that people can come from both sides into that middle area."

John, is that found in the suburbs?

Are there candidates, are there policies there?

Or is this something where we're gonna have to wait for a pendulum to swing back in the other direction?

- Well, I think the suburbs are where you find the most people that would really value that approach.

And I think that's the kind of approach that can be the winners in many of those suburban areas, both in Illinois and nationally.

We've got too many political people running for office because they don't wanna make policy.

They want to get on Fox News or MSNBC and they want to get ready for their next career.

And they're not at all interested in policy and I think suburban voters are.

- Just a minute or two left in the program this week.

And we're hearing more and more from energy company Amar in Illinois saying, not only do we need to increase prices for our customers, but those customers need to be prepared for potential brownouts this summer because of a lack of supply when it comes to energy and increased prices that they say they have to pass along.

Brenden, is this going to impact voters as they head to the polls?

I suppose, both in the primary but more importantly in the general election saying, "We can't afford gas prices going any higher.

We've already had this summer where we've had energy issues."

- Yeah, it certainly could.

I think that this is both a short term and a long term problem that we have here in central and Southern Illinois.

So obviously in the short term, you have the situation in Ukraine, inflation, everything you could think of that's leading to higher energy prices, but long term, it's just the fact that central and Southern Illinois are in a different energy market than Chicago is, we don't have the nuclear plants as base load energy to help with that supply.

And with all the coal plants coming offline and natural gas going away in the future as well, that the challenges replacing that with enough renewable energy to make up the difference.

And so maybe there'll be some browns this summer and that could cause some electoral pain for folks running for office, but in the future it's gonna be, I would suggest it's gonna be even more of a challenge in the coming years.

- Sure.

We get through each program each week with more things to talk about than we have time to talk about them.

I wanna thank our guests, Brenden Moore, the state house reporter for Lee enterprises and John Jackson, the visiting professor at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at S I U Carbondale.

Gentlemen, thanks so much.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for having me.

- I'm Jennifer Fuller.

Join us again next week on "Capitol View."

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