The battle for Illinois will be decided Nov 8th, 2022. Make no mistake, it’s going to be close. Will the people re-elect King Executive Order, or are we ready to throw off this government overreach that has been holding the true potential of Illinois back. We face some of the highest taxes, property taxes, gas taxes, and regulations in the country, yet we continue to push forward despite all of this. But if nothing changes, then nothing changes.
The past 2 years have shown the need for separation of government branches. We’ve lived under executive rule for too long, and our economy is paying the price. Population change between 2010-2020 census, only 3 states had a net loss of population. And you can guess which state makes the list. Illinois, with a net loss of 18,124, due to people leaving. And now, the US census bureau estimates 113,776 people have left just between JULY 2020 and JULY 2021 !!! And that’s from last year, obviously showing the RATE of population loss is increasing. Those people are leaving for better opportunity for their family and lower taxes. Businesses are leaving left and right (Boeing, Caterpillar, Citadel, & tons of small business), taking job opportunity with them. 81 of 102 counties lost population in 2021 too, taking jobs with them. Imagine the change that would have to happen for Illinois to GAIN 113,000 people in a year….
Enter Darren Bailey. Having the opportunity to get to know him in the past 2 years since the inception of the “Pritzker lock downs”, I can say with absolute certainty that he really is a person that is FOR the people. Bailey, along with others I’ve seen entering the arena, like Tom DeVore running for Attorney General, were ordinary people that just wanted to be left alone. But they were given the opportunity to step up and stand against government overreach and couldn’t just sit by idly.
So what is it going to take to defeat the Illinois democrat machine? In short, a miracle. But I see the best chance of success now compared to ever before. But that population loss isn’t people that are in love with our state’s far left policies, they are the voters we would need to stand against the machine. David’s fight against Goliath seemed impossible too, but he had a rock. We have a Bailey. And if We The People use our vote and voice enough, we can propel him with enough force to take down Goliath.
I charted all of the presidential primaries, along with all governor primaries and general elections to tell a story. Then to show voter turnout, there are percentage differences between the primary and general election for governor. There are a few anomalies to be pointed out. One anomaly that stands out in 2014, is the low primary turnout for democrats, but then normal turnout for the general election. This causes the percent increase to be abnormally high for the general election turnout to be higher than normal, yet Republican votes still won in the governor race, electing Bruce Rauner. If you look back at some patterns of Complacency versus Opposition, you can note that Rauner was elected fresh off the heels of having Democrat Governor Quinn and Democrat President Obama. The democrat vote was complacent, while the Republican vote was stronger because of opposition. Opposition can often be a stronger emotional force than support.
The second anomaly on the democrat side turns up in 2018, where both the primary and general election turnouts hit their peak. This was Pritzker’s election, where you had the Republican Governor Rauner and Republican President Trump. The Democrat vote showed up in strong opposition, hitting 1.3million votes in the primary, and a record 2.4million votes in the general. Meanwhile, Republican voter turnout had become complacent, falling 100,000 votes in both the primary and general.
And that brings us to 2022, Bailey vs Prizker. We currently have a Democrat governor and Democrat president, inspiring that opposition vote in the Republican side, while allowing for the scenario of complacency among Democrat voters. From 2018 to 2022, the Democrat voter turnout fell 38%, from 1.3million to just 850,000. Admittedly, there wasn’t much opposition, but also nothing to get excited about on that ticket. Simultaneously, Republicans had a 7% INCREASE in voter turnout from 2018 to 2022, going from 739,000 to 787,000. Yet this still doesnt top the 2014 Rauner primary turnout of 837,000 (remember that population loss?)
The next thing to be pointed out is that Republican turnout from primaries to general election makes a bigger jump than the Democrat side. The Democrat vote is typically an increase of 82-84% between the primary and general election, with the exception of 2014 with the low voter turnout (complacency) in the primary causing the percentage change. Had the average 1million voters turned out for the primary, the general election numbers would have only been a 68% increase. Meanwhile the Republican votes can jump from 118-139% between the primary and general.
So going off of the total 2022 primary votes, the Democrat voter turnout was 850,000 which is slightly low, but still within range of the normal votes back from years 2000 to 2014. And Republican voter turnout was 787,000, within the typical range. If we give the Democrat increase a generous 90% increase in votes in the general, and the Republican a fairly typical 118% increase, we’ll wind up with Bailey 1.7million votes vs Pritzker 1.6million votes.
Important note: The highest Republican general vote ever was 1.8million for Rauner, and the highest Democrat general vote ever was 2.4million for Pritzker. The pendulum swings hard sometimes. But as a simple fact, if all of those voters show up and vote those party lines again, that’s game. There are simply more democrat voters in Illinois. As hard as it may be to believe, there are still a huge amount of people that think our governor has done a great job and can’t wait to re-elect him so they can be told what to do and how to think, so blinded by party lines unable to see the destruction being caused before them. A second term of this would be the green light to continue the executive rule. And there’s been talks of Pritzker wanting to run for President? The rest of the country has no idea what it would be in for, and Illinois has the chance to put a stop to that. You know who doesnt run for President? Somebody that just lost their governor re-election.
But I’ve witnessed something quite unique with Darren Bailey. He has “IT”, whatever “IT” is. We were able to attend the Mendon, IL rally a few weeks back for Mary Miller, where Trump spoke. While the crowd went crazy when Trump came out, I pointed out it was even louder when he mentioned Bailey. There were various times across the arena throughout the evening where we would see people across the way stand up and start cheering, yelling, and taking pictures. We thought there must be somebody famous walking by, and would try to figure out who it was. It was always Bailey. People seem to be drawn to him in an excited way that I’ve not seen. They are looking for change, crying out for help, and he is going to be their voice.
Looking at history and trends, it’s quite possible this will be Illinois’ last Republican Governor, so we better make it count. You still have the legislature to deal with, which very well may continue to push terrible legislation. But at least you’d have a Governor to veto some of these terrible bills. It’s going to take everything we’ve got in order to defeat the Illinois politics machine though. We’ll need a record voter turnout, and even then it’ll be close. Start having those conversations with everyone you know. We are going to need every single Republican voter, as well as some of the Democrat voters that are tired of the nonsense. It doesn’t matter what party. Start asking if things are better now? Do they have more or less money to spend? Are they paying more or less taxes? Do you want the freedom to make your own choices? Are you tired of executive order mandates?
Illinois needs Bailey.