Here’s some of the notable election results from Tuesdays primaries.
Governor:
Democratic winner: JB Pritzker
Republican winner: Bruce Rauner
Pritzker is an establishment democrat and won this primary pretty easily strengthened by his billions of dollars that he has at his disposal to fund his campaign. Daniel Biss a more progressive candidate finished second in the race edging out the moderate Chris Kennedy who failed to do much notable in his campaign despite coming from one of the most famous families in America. I think Biss was a better candidate, especially if Democrats want to be a party for the people. There’s really not much in my mind that differentiates Pritzker and Bruce Rauner, and I don’t think that is good for the future of the democratic party. Pritzker should have a good shot at beating Rauner who has managed to piss everyone off it seems, despite winning Tuesdays primary. He edged out a far right candidate Jeanne Ives, who frankly is just awful. But Bruce has come under fire from the far right for at least being somewhat sensible and expanding abortion coverage for women on Medic aid. It was a very close race, clear signs of discontent surrounding Rauner. Just another thing about Ives, she is one of those people who will blabber all day about how the government doesn’t leave people alone enough while also advocating policies to control women’s bodies and discriminate against the LGTB+ community because she is a bigot. Seriously, go watch one of her commercials. They are horrifically insulting and I’m glad she lost.
Attorney General :
Democratic winner: Kwame Raoul
Republican winner: Erika Harold
The democratic race was more interesting in this one because it was closer and because former governor Pat Quinn decided to step back into the realm of Chicago politics, but ultimately failed to carry the day. Raoul, a lawyer, is a good progressive candidate who filled the state senate in 2004 when Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate. Since then he has been an advocate for a number of admirable causes such as criminal justice reform, domestic violence prevention, education reform and expansion of services. In his campaign he has advocated for making abortion safe and accessible along with the equal wages act. Raoul has gotten a lot of funding from gaming, gambling and tobacco interests and has been a frequent supporter of the gaming and gambling industries when voting so I do think that is a negative to watch out for. I like Raoul a good amount more than Pritzker, but both democratic candidates for these two races are being funded by huge conglomerates. On the Republican side, the lawyer/former US pageant contestant Erika Harold won the primary pretty easily with 59% of the vote. She was notable in the past for using the Pageant stage to advocate for abstinence until marriage, which unsurprisingly made her popular with Republican politicians and the Bush regime. One positive is that despite being against same sex adoption previously, her position is now for it. It’s not really something we should have to celebrate since being against systemic bigotry ideally should be the bare minimum of basic human decency, but in our current environment at least it’s something. Better than Ives.
U.S. House 3rd District:
Democratic winner: Daniel Lipinski
Republican winner: Arthur Jones(Nazi)
I don’t even know where to begin with this so lets begin with the fact that Arthur Jones the uncontested republican winner in this race, is a Holocaust denying Neo-Nazi. It’s a pretty telling representation of the current state of the GOP that they somehow failed to stop this literal piece of human trash from winning an uncontested race under their parties banner. How could they not manage to draft another candidate? Literally anyone else who isn’t a Nazi would do. I know this race was always very likely to go Democratic, but there is zero excuse for this. Even if Republicans are furiously denouncing him from their party, there is still a Nazi running under the Republican banner. Let us not forget that Roy Moore a pedophile and outright bigot also carried the GOP flag(to a very real well of rightwing support) and got close to 50% of the vote in the Alabama senate race that he lost earlier this year. The GOP has shown a penchant for supporting farther and farther right candidates and even though they denounce this one, they still deserve the blame for attracting these kinds of people with their angry and hateful rhetoric. On the democratic side Daniel Lipinski, a pro life democrat who is as conservative as a democrat can be won a tight race against a better candidate(in my opinion) in Marie Newman. Lipinski has usually had these races handed to him but he got an extremely competitive race on this one. Newman is a much more progressive candidate and I think a much better fit for what the Democratic party of the future should aim for. Lipinski is an old white man with large political connections who wants to deny Women’s access to abortion. I think the democratic party should not be touting anti choice candidates.
