Republican and Democratic voters go to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots for their November general picks for public office, including putting their imprimatur on each party’s designated White House nominees — Democratic President Joe Biden and Republican Donald Trump.
Polls open across the state at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. with the day expected to open in the Chicago area to below-freezing temperatures before warming into the mid-50s under partly sunny skies, with no rain expected.
In Chicago, voters who live anywhere in the city can cast a ballot at the Chicago Voting Super Site, 191 N. Clark St., or vote at any of the 51 sites that were established as early voting centers. Voters who want to go to their local precinct polling places must go to their assigned voting locations.
At stake in each party are votes for president as well as pledged national convention nominating delegates — although the outcome is a fait accompli. Primaries held a week ago gave Biden and Trump more than enough delegates to win their party nominations at their national conventions this summer.
With no statewide races up for election this year, the undercard is the story of the 2024 primary as voters will be deciding November matchups for the U.S. House, all 118 seats in the Illinois House, 23 of the 59 seats in the Illinois Senate, selected county offices, including Cook County state’s attorney and circuit clerk, as well as circuit judgeships.
The Democratic Party race for state’s attorney between former prosecutor and government official Clayton Harris III and former prosecutor and retired Appellate Judge Eileen O’Neill Burke has caught much of the attention.
Both are seeking to replace outgoing Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who hadn’t publicly endorsed either candidate. But over the weekend Foxx took to her private Instagram account to share a picture of herself with her two adult daughters at the polls.
“We are Team Clayton Harris! We can’t afford to go back to the past,” read the post, which the Tribune obtained screenshots of from separate followers. “Don’t sleep on this race. Vote like our lives depend on it!”
Foxx’s comments weren’t a major surprise. Harris was endorsed by Foxx’s political mentor, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and backed by the Cook County Democratic Party that Preckwinkle heads.
Still, the primary has functioned as a referendum on Foxx’s two-term tenure and her backing of Harris comes as her political popularity has waned and her legacy is mixed. While she has been praised by some for helping reform major problems in the office with race and justice, others have criticized her for not being tough enough on defendants and lowering prosecutors’ morale. She also was blamed for shootings and homicides that surged during the pandemic. While statistics show those crimes have gone down since the pandemic, carjackings and thefts remain high, according to Chicago Police Department statistics.
Foxx told the Tribune a “surprising” number of friends and family had asked who she was voting for. She is supporting Harris because it is “critically important” to aggressively continue the office’s work reversing wrongful convictions and “admit when we got it wrong.”
Harris campaign manager Alaina Hampton said Harris was “proud to have a broad coalition of supporters who believe the urgent work of criminal justice reform must continue.” O’Neill Burke has touted her decades of court experience both behind and in front of the bench, arguing the most effective way to “change criminal behavior is by enforcing the law.” Among her pledges is for arrestees to be held without bond “each and every time” they are found with an assault weapon, threaten anyone with a weapon or are involved in violent crime.
Chicago voters also will decide the fate of the “Bring Chicago Home” initiative, a signature referendum question backed heavily by Mayor Brandon Johnson that would give the City Council authority to increase the city’s real estate transfer tax on high-end sales, primarily involving commercial and larger residential properties. As part of the proposal, sales on properties for less than $1 million would see a slightly reduced tax rate, while all properties sold for more than $1 million would see the transfer tax increase. Supporters estimate the hike will generate $100 million, which city officials have said would be used to pay for housing and wraparound services for people experiencing homelessness.
As candidates used the final hours before the polls opened to make traditional stops at CTA and Metra rail stations to help convince voters to cast their ballots, there were diminished expectations that turnout would be sizable with the presidential nominating contests already decided.
As of Sunday night, in Chicago, 131,048 ballots were cast for this primary. That’s compared with 190,088 early and mail-in votes being cast two days before the primary in the last presidential primary in 2020 and 145,884 ballots cast in the 2016 Illinois primary.
“I just hope people get out to vote. I know it’s an important day,” Gov J.B. Pritzker, who isn’t up for election this year, told reporters. “I’m always afraid that people either forget that it’s Election Day, because they’re not reading everything that you’re putting out, or they’re just busy in their lives, and often too busy.”
In 2016, primary voter turnout in Chicago was nearly 54% of the more than 1.5 million registered voters, helped in part by a still-active Democratic presidential primary contest in which Hillary Clinton barely edged U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont by less than 2 percentage points and Trump, still in pursuit of the nomination, defeated U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas by about 8.6 percentage points.
Four years ago, in a primary held as COVID-19 was spreading rapidly, citywide turnout fell to less than 38%, though early voting and mail-in voting increased. While Trump had sewn up the GOP nomination as a sitting president, Biden and Sanders were still competing for the Democratic nomination. Biden won the Illinois primary by nearly 23 percentage points.
“We’ve got volunteers and supporters that are helping us reach out to the voters and turn them out,” said state Rep. Theresa Mah, a Chicago Democrat whose district covers part of the South Side. “Not everybody’s just focused on the presidential race. People think locally. They act locally. And if there are active, competitive races in their areas then that’s going to drive turnout.”
Another factor that could tamp down turnout is the growing political divisions between Republicans led by Trump and backed by far-right conservatives, and Democrats moving further leftward in pushing a progressive ideology.
Christopher Mooney, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the vast majority of people eschew ideology. That leaves little incentive for those people to vote in primary elections where they must choose a Democratic or Republican party ballot.
“Both sides, they’re driven by an ideology that is baked in and deep. Both sides inform the policy debate as well they should. They have strongly held opinions based on principle. But their principal problem is, that runs up against practical politics,” Mooney said.
“Most people don’t look at politics from an ideological perspective. Most people are not ideologically driven, especially in the state of Illinois, but really all across the United States,” he said. “You know, we fear ideology.”
In January, Gallup said the number of people nationally who identify themselves politically as independents was 43%, trying a record high from 2014, while those classifying themselves as Republicans or Democrats was 27%.
The primary also will provide an indicator of the success of the Illinois Republican Party’s embrace of a national strategy to encourage early and mail-in voting. The GOP’s “Bank the Vote” program was launched despite Trump’s dislike of the practice and his false claims that fraudulent mail-in ballots were part of the reason he contends the 2020 election was stolen from him.
“Early voting helps save costs for our Republican candidates, especially since our nominees will need resources and funds for the general election,” state GOP Chair Don Tracy said in his weekly memo on Friday. “Our Republican candidates need our most dependable Republican voters to vote early to help save money for their campaigns.”
Trump recently dumped the party’s national chair, Ronna McDaniel, an ardent promoter of the “Bank Your Vote” program, and Trump aides initially told The Washington Post that the concept was going to be abandoned in favor of greater voter outreach. But after internal discussions, new RNC Chair Michael Whatley said the program will continue.
Illinois Democrats for years have pursued a well organized and successful early vote and vote-by-mail program that’s given them a strategic advantage over Republicans. The state GOP contends that in 2022, Illinois Democrats saved $5.5 million for the general election by banking more early and mail-in votes by Election Day.
Chicago Tribune’s Olivia Olander and Jeremy Gorner contributed.
