Illinois Dems look to impact more down ballot races

ast year, the Democratic Party of Illinois and Gov. JB Pritzker targeted local school board races to defeat candidates who wanted to ban books and/or were receiving support from right-wing political organizations. The governor ended up claiming victory in more than 70 percent of those campaigns.

The push was unusual because the state’s Democratic Party, like the state Republican Party, had for years been solely focused on processing direct mail for mainly legislative candidates so that those candidates could receive a discount on postage. The total federal discount every year was usually enough to finance mailers for at least one and maybe two additional campaigns.

But when the governor effectively took over the Democratic Party two years ago by electing a new chair, he promised to focus lots more on down-ballot races. Last year’s school board contests, which cost the party about $300,000, were the first visible signs that the party was moving in a new direction.

This year, the state party claims it is pushing 80 county-wide and county board candidates in 19 counties where they think they can flip seats to their side. It’s not known how much the party intends to spend on those races, but since June 30th, DPI has raised more than a million dollars above and beyond the $5.5 million it’s taken in from legislative leaders for direct mail. And about half that million bucks came from the governor.




https://muddyrivernews.com/politics/miller-illinois-dems-look-to-impact-more-down-ballot-races/20241006073929/