Election Day 2008 was a good day for Illinois Democrats. Enthusiasm over Barack Obama helped Democrats claim two congressional seats in the historically Republican Chicago suburbs and swelled voter rolls. The Democratic Party widened its majorities in both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly, two years after capturing control of every statewide office. The transformation from a purple to blue state seemed complete.
Two years later, talk of a permanent Democratic majority sounds more like a cruel joke. On Nov. 2, Illinois voters could very well elect as their next governor state Sen. Bill Brady, a conservative Republican who won his party's crowded primary with just 20 percent of the vote and has not recorded any major legislative accomplishments in over 17 years of service in the state House. U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, a moderate Republican with a proclivity for exaggeration, is well positioned to win President Obama's Senate seat. And both suburban freshman Democrats who swept in on the president's coattails are in grave danger of losing their seats in the Capitol. (So is U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, a union-friendly incumbent whose central Illinois district hasn't chosen a Republican in more than 25 years.) There's even an outside chance that powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan will relinquish control of the Illinois House, a turn of events unthinkable 24 months ago.
"It's hard to know how bleak the outlook is [for Democrats]," says Christopher Mooney, a political science professor at the University of Illinois, Springfield. "But it doesn't look good."
How did the electoral landscape in Obama's home state shift so swiftly? The rickety economy has played the central role. "When the economy is bad," Mooney says, "that trumps everything else."
Since the housing market bottomed out, Illinois' unemployment rate has consistently tracked higher than the national average. (In August, it sat at 10.1 percent.) A total of 131,132 Illinois properties received a foreclosure filing in 2009 alone, the nation's fourth highest. Almost 1.7 million residents now live below the (ludicrously low) federal poverty line, a number that grew from 12.2 percent to 13.3 percent last year.
Down in Springfield, plummeting tax receipts and poor budget management have left the state with a gaping deficit; Illinois currently owes $5.5 billion in late payments to schools, municipalities, and social-service providers. It could face a working hole of $15 billion (over 50 percent of the state's general revenue fund) when lawmakers begin to craft the FY 2012 budget this spring. Even though legislators from both sides of the aisle share blame, it's Democrats who currently preside over the three branches of state government.
Democratic primary voters didn't help by electing candidates at the top of the ticket with glaring weaknesses. Two months after securing his party's Senate nomination, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias watched the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation seize his family's community bank. Giannoulias' role in the bank's demise, prompted by risky real-estate lending, is still unclear. A Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV survey earlier this month found that just 35 percent of respondents viewed the Democrat as "honest and trustworthy."
But Nov. 2 is not a straight election for the Senate race. The winner of a special election will serve out the remaining two months of Obama's Senate term, as well as the normal six-year term. Indeed, Kirk -- who has tacked right since the primary -- launched his own website to increase awareness about the possibility of Democratic overreach during the chamber's lame-duck session. He supports at least a two-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for all Americans, could vote against both the defense authorization bill (because of "don't ask, don't tell") and the 2011 omnibus spending bill (because of earmarks), and has made no public statements in support of the START Treaty.
Giannoulias, on the other hand, has consistently criticized Republicans for obstructionism in general and their constant use of the filibuster specifically. "The process has become a complete mess," he said at a Chicago event this summer. A Giannoulias victory in November would give lawmakers hoping to repair their broken institution one more ally.
Twenty-two months ago, Pat Quinn replaced Rod Blagojevich -- the former governor turned national laughingstock who was impeached after attempting to use state government as his personal piggy bank. The former lieutenant governor, an affable populist who has held various positions in state government over the past four decades, has not yet proved to voters that he can manage the state's giant bureaucracy effectively -- he got heat for a botched early-release program for inmates and the disclosure of untimely pay raises to his own staff. Less than 40 percent of voters approve of Quinn's job in office. In southern Illinois, his reputation is even worse; one recent poll showed Brady leading the governor in that region by 25 points.
The election of Brady could have far graver implications for the people of Illinois. "He's the most right-wing gubernatorial candidate ever nominated by a major party [here]," says Terry Cosgrove, president and CEO of Personal PAC, an influential pro-choice organization.
Brady has already said he would veto a civil-unions bill currently pending in the Assembly. He's inaccurately derided the Medicaid expansion included in the Affordable Care Act and could scuttle efforts of Illinois' newly formed health-care implementation task force to establish a progressive health-insurance exchange. A opponent of abortion in all cases except where the mother's life is at state, he would likely block any additional safeguards for women. Brady's also skeptical of global warming and might hinder improvements to the state's Renewable Energy Standard and other green-energy initiatives.
And on the most pressing issue the state faces -- its budget -- the Republican could do some real damage. On the trail, Brady has doubled down on a no-tax-hike pledge, called for $1 billion in additional tax cuts (most of which will benefit wealthy businesses and families), and vaguely promised to lop off at least 10 percent from the budget. It's the exact wrong path to take in a low-spending state that's starved human services and relies on an inefficient, outdated, and highly regressive tax structure. To prevent an electoral disaster, progressives in Illinois know what needs to be done: Get Obama voters to the polls. Although the Chicago Board of Elections counts 189,000 fewer registered voters in the Windy City now than when Obama won, there are still roughly 875,000 voters in Cook County alone who voted in the 2008 presidential contest but not in the 2006 governor's election. Democrats need those folks to turn out en masse if they don't want their slate swept.
LGBT organizations, immigrant advocates, and community clubs are already conducting GOTV efforts in earnest. Personal PAC is sending out a series of mailers to roughly 300,000 suburban pro-choice voters highlighting Brady's pro-life stance. SEIU, the state's most politically active union, rolled out a nontraditional $1 million advertising blitz that focuses on the threat of the Tea Party movement (itself relatively toothless thus far in the Land of Lincoln).
President Obama is even scheduled to return to his hometown this Saturday. His goal? Rally the base. If there's one person who can mobilize a crowd in Chicago, it's the city's favorite son.