A Twin City political scientist says McLean County Democrats have been building toward gaining control of the McLean County Board through changing demographics for two decades now.
“With new voters, a diversification of our community's population, and the fact that we're the highest educated community outside of Chicago in the state, those are all things that have led our voting patterns toward the Democrats,” said Illinois Wesleyan University professor Tari Renner.
Elections on Tuesday flipped control of the board from a 10-10 split between Republicans and Democrats to a 12-8 advantage for the Democratic Party.
Speaking on WGLT's Sound Ideas, Renner said what has not yet been seen is a higher frequency of Democrats running for judge or countywide offices. Democrats haven't won a countywide office in McLean County since 1990, when voters elected Steve Brienen sheriff, Renner noted. Then Brienen switched parties. Since then, few Democrats have run countywide.
"I would assume that the Democrats would be more aggressive in recruiting people to run for those kinds of offices. It's not like there is any shortage of attorneys or people who could fill those positions," said Renner, a former mayor of Bloomington.
Renner said he also was not surprised that even though the demographic shift began in the '90s, there is still no countywide presence.
“Clearly the Democrats have a strong base. It's a little like the Republicans in the slow process of becoming a majority party in the south. It took them a long time to get candidates, to learn how to develop a ground game, a GOTV [get out the vote] operation, and to have candidates for higher level offices,” said Renner.
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ 50.9% turnout in McLean County could encourage more Democrats to try countywide races. She outperformed Joe Biden's vote results from four years ago in McLean County. And Harris did better in McLean County than in all but five counties in the state: Cook, Champaign, DuPage, Lake, and Rock Island.
Twelve of the 102 counties in Illinois had majorities for Harris, putting McLean County in the middle of the pack as Harris’ margins are ranked.
Turnout in McLean County was a little below four years ago, but only a little. Harris did marginally better than Biden, a 4.5% plurality, compared with a 4% margin for Biden.
For Republicans, Renner said the McLean County GOP looks a lot like the national one.
“The local Republican Party isn't any further to the right than the national party is,” said Renner.
Renner said inflation played a part in Harris’ defeat nationally. He said other factors matter, such as campaigning on bitterness and grievance, though it will take some time to figure out how much weight each factor had and what else mattered.
“The thing that I wouldn't assume it would be that darkness and anger is something that a strategy the Democrats should pursue. Appealing to the worst part of human beings can maybe win in the short term, but in the long term, that's probably not going to be a sustainable strategy," said Renner. "One of the reasons why the Democrats have gained some nominal Republicans or former Republicans is because they've not gone down that path.”
He said one of the biggest problems nationally is Democrats lost votes among people of color, especially men of color. Latino males that went 70% for former president Barack Obama voted for Trump by a 23-point margin, according to exit polls.
Renner said he found that “shocking,” as Trump tropes disparaged those groups as criminals and unwanted in America.
“Part of it is, I think, many people's memories of four years ago and eight years ago and even before have faded. It wasn't as fresh as when Trump was actually the incumbent president,” said Renner.
What's the lesson of this election for women?
“Wow, excellent question. Well, obviously the glass ceiling isn't broken yet. Women are going to be treated differently, especially if they're running for an executive office,” said Renner.
Harris had 107 days to put a campaign together, though Renner thinks that was less of a problem than the fact she was female and a woman of color. He said men may be fighting back or feeling frustrated and are voting that way.
"We may not have a society that's quite as male dominated as it was 10 years ago, certainly not 20 or 30 years ago, and it's a little like right wing fundamentalist evangelicals who think that there's a war on religion. There's not a war on religion, certainly not a war on them. It's just they dominated 90-100% of everything, and now that they're maybe down to only 60 or 70%, [so] they feel like they're losing ground,” said Renner.
Those feeling marginalized or threatened culturally or economically will not gain relief from those feelings via the Trump planks of deportations, tariffs, and isolationism.
“None of those policies address anything in the short term or the long term. First of all, you can't do massive deportations. Once again, it's a lie,” said Renner. “Tariffs are almost certainly going to increase inflation rather than decrease inflation.”
He said "political physics" is always present, political force and counter force. The party that loses a presidential cycle always tries very hard to push back two years later for the mid-term contests.
“And then in four years, the whole White House race is totally open. Trump can't run for election anymore, and the Democrats will have an open field….Boy, we're going to have probably, another record-breaking expenditure election with a lot of nastiness, a lot of acrimony, and a lot of problems in probably even making predictions,” said Renner.
Part of the reason former President Trump is President-elect Trump is that he capitalized on economic disparity and feelings of disenfranchisement. Renner said that is usually a winning issue for Democrats, adding Republican tax cuts tangibly increased the wealth divide under Trump and spiked the federal deficit.
Yet Biden's tax credits for child care did not resonate in the same way.
"Large numbers of people who were part of the working poor, or the lower working class were able to actually swim above the poverty line,” said Renner. "They did quite well. Very well, better than any time that we've been taking statistics on this, since the New Deal of the 1930s."
Even though presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter lost in part because they were blamed for inflation over which they had no control, Renner said this election has no parallels.
“We've never had a president impeached much less be impeached twice and come back and win," he said. "We've never had a president convicted of 34 felonies and frankly, admitting to committing other felonies. I mean using your position as Trump bragged, to grab women by the private parts is a felony in every state in the union. So yeah, there are all kinds of things that are just totally unprecedented. And I would say, hold on to your seats!”
