[MUSIC] >> Welcome to Capitol View on WSIU.

I'm Brian Sapp.

Election day is five days away and campaigns across the state have picked up.

We'll look at the last week as candidates make their pitch to voters.

And while legislators and the governor stayed largely quiet on the veto session, we've had some talk here and there.

The General Assembly will be back in Springfield in just a few weeks.

We'll talk about these topics with today's guests.

Joining us is Brendan Moore.

He's a reporter with Capitol News Illinois.

And we have a new analyst joining us today.

Mitch Armentrout is a reporter politics reporter with the Chicago Sun-Times.

Brennan and Mitch, welcome to the program.

>> Thanks so much.

>> Well, as I said, the elephant in the room is elections.

We are coming down to the wire.

Brendan, you and your partner or your colleague Ben Zelinsky did a series of interviews with statewide candidates.

Was there?

We haven't talked a lot about these just because we have some.

It seems like seemingly strong incumbents and some challengers who don't have as much experience.

Is that the theme you found when you did these interviews?

>> Yeah.

So the theme so far, a few days out from this election is that Democrats are fairly entrenched and heavily favored in all of these statewide races, uh, from the governor's race on down.

Um, we talked a lot about Governor Pritzker and Darren Bailey.

They're both pretty well known.

Uh, Governor Pritzker has been way out spending Bailey getting his message out.

Uh, but there are also other races on the ballot.

Um, we've talked a little bit about the Senate race between Juliana Stratton and Don Tracy.

Uh, and the Democrats are favored there.

Uh, Stratton has started to put some ads up, uh, I believe last week.

Uh, but then you have some of these other constitutional offices at the state level that don't get as much attention.

So, you know, Secretary of state, attorney general, comptroller, treasurer, and, uh, and most of those cases, you have incumbent Democrats or at the very least established Democrats.

Uh, the comptroller's race is open, but you have a pretty prominent Chicago lawmaker who's the Democratic nominee there.

Uh, they're all pretty well funded, uh, relatively well known across the state.

And they're running against Republicans who are not really well established, not really well known.

In some cases, you know, they've kind of reached perennial candidate status or they maybe ran for a smaller office before, uh, and weren't successful.

Or maybe they're on like, you know, the Diane Harris, who's the secretary of state nominee for the Republicans, is on the Joliet Community College Board.

Uh, these are not candidates that that would, you would typically see in the past be nominated for, you know, such prominent statewide offices.

And so it's really kind of been a lopsided affair because you have these, uh, Democrats who have pretty large campaign war chest, uh, against these Republicans that really don't have a lot of money or resources.

And they're not getting really a lot of help from the Republican Party because there's such a, a, a fundraising gap.

And, you know, I hate to keep coming back to money, but that's really, uh, a very crucial aspect, uh, of campaigning allows you to communicate with voters in a state of 12 million people.

So a week or less than a week until the election.

Um, you know, it we, we've seen, again, a little bit of spending at the top with Governor Pritzker.

Uh, you know, Don Tracy on the Republican side has has gotten on TV with some ads.

But besides that, we haven't really seen much of a race.

I mean, Alexi Giannoulias, the incumbent secretary of state, is running for mayor at the same time he's running for re-election.

Uh, to, to his current job.

And, and, and he can do that because he doesn't really have, uh, really any fear of losing, uh, in the election next week.

I mean, anything can happen.

Uh, people still got to vote, but, uh, where we stand right now, uh, it appears that a Democratic sweep, uh, is is the likeliest outcome in Illinois.

>> Mitch, I wanted to come to you.

Kind of maybe put on an analysis hat.

Are we will the Republican Party be able to build up a farm system.

Are there like candidates?

I'm sure.

Local level.

Because you start to move outside Chicago and the collar counties.

Plenty of red on that map.

Um, and I'm sure that there's candidates that are strong in their local communities.

Do you think that there's any way that they'll be convinced in the future to move towards these state positions?

>> Yeah, this has kind of been the question for Illinois Republicans for more than a decade now.

Uh, former Governor Bruce Rauner, uh, when he won in 2014, that's the last time we saw Republican elected to statewide office.

Uh, I had just graduated college not too long before that.

Uh, and I'm a few years older than that now, but, um, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a hard sort of predicament for any party to find themselves in.

And, you know, when you, uh, watch session, uh, in the capital, there are certainly viable candidates in the General Assembly.

Uh, really, um, you know, folks that you see who, you know, you, you can picture mounting a, a wider run for office.

But the trouble there is convincing folks to take on that effort.

Um, you know, when, uh, when it takes, uh, when the odds are so heavily stacked against a party, um, it's hard to convince folks to leave, uh, you know, a relatively comfortable positions that they might have in different parts of the state to campaign where you're facing a billionaire governor, uh, who's sitting on $40 million in his campaign account right now, who's put more than $400 million into his three runs so far.

Um, you know, it's it's not a tempting prospect for a lot of folks and yeah, how do you make that more appealing to candidates?

You know, talking to the new Illinois Republican Party chair, Bob Grogan, you know, he said that that's really sort of his main focus as he's sort of taking the reins, uh, since last spring, trying to attract viable candidates.

Uh, Brendan mentioned Diane Harris, who reported like a hundred bucks in her campaign account at entering October.

That's not, um, that's not a serious campaign.

Um, much less, uh, when you're going against somebody like Alexi Giannoulias, who has statewide name recognition and has, for all intents and purposes, been running a mayoral campaign, uh, basically, you know, for the last, uh, since Brandon Johnson took office.

Um, not literally, he only announced it back around Labor Day, but yeah, it's, it's hard to kind of find reasons for optimism, um, for, you know, more viable Republican candidates statewide.

Um, but I guess we'll, we'll see if they can sort of gain any inch, any gain ground they can gain.

Uh, November 3rd would be, uh, new ground that they haven't seen in a while.

>> Definitely.

It seems like a question in the year and 18 months that I've been here, it's been an issue that we've been talking about, and we'll see if Mr.

Grogan can make some inroads on that.

I wanted to move.

Brendan talked a little bit about the top of the ticket.

The governor and the Senate.

Um, looking.

Mitch, I'll stick with you.

The governor's race.

To me it kind of seems to be an autopilot.

You know, in the years that I've covered, it gets quiet.

You know, those they start politicking and you know, September, October.

But really I've seen more emails from both campaigns these past weeks.

One of the things I've noticed is it seems like almost every day or every other day, Governor Pritzker has a new ad coming out.

Um, he would seem to have we don't haven't had any polls, but seemed to have a comfortable lead.

What's his purpose for doing this?

Is he just trying to run up the score, so to speak, or just build his bona fides as he maybe looks for a national race?

>> I think that there's yeah, it's certainly hard to ignore the money that he's spending in other states and the trips he's taken between campaign events in Illinois.

But, um, he's obviously yeah, he's, he's certainly raising his national profile.

Um, but also when you've got, uh, a $65 million check that you've already cut for your campaign, you got to spend that money somehow.

Uh, whether or not he, you know, really needs to go really hard on Darren Bailey.

Um, you know, you never take anything for granted.

Um, even if you've beaten a guy four years ago by almost 13 percentage points, uh, a real drubbing.

Um, what I think is kind of interesting is, um, you know, when Darren Bailey won the Republican nomination, um, you know, his main content, you know, his, his main point was that, uh, he was really going to work to win over Chicago voters, Cook County area voters, suburban voters, um, who had really rejected him in 2022, uh, and tried to bring him over to his side this time around.

You know, that's kind of the bedrock of, uh, the Illinois Republican Party for years up until President Trump's rise to office.

Um, uh, and I think what's telling is that his strategy here in the final ten days or so of the election, um, is he's kind of on a down state bus tour.

He's going to Effingham, he's going to parts of southern and central Illinois, um, really trying to get out the vote.

Um, in areas where, uh, he won four years ago.

Um, and really trying to just beef up the numbers and stressing, you know, that turnout is going to be a key, uh, really the key for him.

Um, you know, I'm not saying that he's conceding, uh, those suburban areas that we talked about, but, um, that's a pretty stark strategy shift here in the home stretch.

Um, and yeah, as far as JB Pritzker, I believe his campaign released his final two digital ads of the campaign this morning.

Um, you know, he's been on TV for months.

Um, Darren Bailey hasn't because he just doesn't have the money.

Um, he's got, he's being outspent 4 to 1 entering October.

Um, so yeah, it's really those, you know, sort of face to face, uh, campaign events.

He's really trying to make up some ground here.

But again, it's, it's stiff headwinds across the board for him.

>> Just to add to that, I mean, this is a case of the governor spending money because he can he's a billionaire.

Uh, he has no reason not to.

Uh, and, and, you know, he was here in Springfield, uh, last weekend and I caught up with him and asked him, you know, is he does he really think he's in any danger?

He's been doing all this travel around the country, raising his profile, spending money in other races too.

And he gave me kind of the old campaign cliche of I always run like I'm five points behind, even though we all know he's probably not five points behind.

Um, you know, and, and, and I think, I think people shouldn't underestimate about the governor is that he's really competitive.

Like he, he wants to run up the score.

He wants to beat his vote share and his margin from 2018 and 2022.

Um, and even on the campaign staff, I mean, his campaign managers from 18 and 22, they always kind of go back and forth about, um, his first campaign manager had the higher, uh, margin of victory, his second campaign manager had the higher vote share.

And I think his third campaign manager, uh, this campaign, I think is going to want to try to beat both of them on margin and on vote share.

And I think that he will have an opportunity to do that based on the disparity in spending.

Because as Mitch said, uh, Darren Bailey has really had, uh, no, no money to spend on television ads.

And it's just been an onslaught from the Pritzker campaign.

And you mix that in with Illinois already, you know, a blue state.

There are more Democrats here than Republicans.

Uh, there are, uh, you know, you have the national climate.

President Trump's approval rating is in the 30s.

Uh, and it's a midterm year.

That could mean that the governor has a good night.

And again, I think it shouldn't be underestimated too, that, um, you know, uh, he's kind of lifting all boats here.

I mean, you have some other statewide candidates on on TV now.

I think Frerichs and Kwame Raoul and a few others are up with ads, but the Pritzker was really the only one doing that for months and months and months.

And then you go down the ballot to state legislative candidates.

Um, you got to think a higher number for Pritzker in those districts means that Democrats are going to do better to, uh, in the legislature, which means that come January, he'll have more allies to continue to pass his agenda in Springfield.

>> And I wanted to we'll wrap up our election talk here with a question back to you, Mitch.

You had talked about you're covering the 97th, um, House seat where, um, former representative Harry Benton left because of the sexual harassment allegations.

And we there we have Jessica Dixon Heitman, who was appointed.

And there seems to be.

You've covered it.

I saw um Pfingsten covered it last week.

So it seems to have drawn some attention.

Is this what is this?

I'm not a bellwether.

Or is this just kind of tell us where maybe this governor lifting all ships in his party?

>> Yeah.

I mean, the 97th district is an interesting one because it's one of the very few districts in Illinois that's like genuinely purple.

Um, you know, even if there wasn't a sexual harassment scandal that had kind of thrown this race up in the air over the summer.

Uh, we'd be watching this one pretty closely because, um, Harry Benton, you know, he, he won his, uh, his first term in his second term, uh, in pretty close matchups the last time with Gabby Shanahan, who's running again, this time, uh, on the GOP ticket.

Um, and yeah, like you mentioned, Jessica Dixon Heitman, she's the appointed representative in this seat.

Um, you know, which I should say covers a lot of Joliet, uh, in Plainfield, far southwest suburban Chicago area.

Um, Jessica Dixon Heitman sort of is.

Um, she, she sort of comes straight from, uh, the Illinois Democratic machine, uh, certainly the Will County Democratic machine.

Um, you know, and the biggest thing here is we're seeing, um, House Speaker Chris Welch is really throwing his full weight in this race behind her to hold on to this seat.

Um, you know, I don't know that it's it's hard to say that a race like this is going to be a bellwether for, um, you know, it's, it's easy to look at this and say, you know, this could potentially be, uh, sort of a barometer of, uh, support for, for Speaker Welch, who's, who's facing a lot of questions on whether he can hold on to the speaker's gavel in January due simply to the way he handled, uh, that sexual harassment investigation into former Representative Benton.

Um, but again, like this would have been a close race no matter what.

Um, and the question here is, you know, can someone who's been in office since July, uh, Dixon Heitman um, is that enough time to sort of build up goodwill with constituents who maybe weren't terribly familiar with her before that?

Um, again, a lot of folks aren't necessarily familiar with their state representative anyway, even if there's not, uh, a scandal in the headlines every day.

Um, so this is, uh, it's going to be really close.

There's not a lot of those races that I think are going to be terribly close, uh, on November 3rd.

Um, but this is really kind of a fascinating one to watch.

>> Definitely.

We'll have, uh, encourage people to get out there to vote, have your say, get out there and vote and let, let your voice be heard.

I want to move on.

We have just under ten minutes left.

I wanted to finish up the show today talking about the veto session.

Um, I think the big thing is left undone.

I'm a bears fan, so I'm glad to see they're having a good season.

Glad to see Caleb's back.

But that's not the.

I'm sure we have plenty of cliches.

Brendan, where do things stand as we go into the veto session with coming up with a plan to keep the bears in Illinois.

>> They're.

They're working on it.

Uh, state lawmakers, the governor, the bears, the NFL.

Um, the big development a few weeks ago was, uh, a in-person meeting between the governor, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, uh, bears part owner Pat Ryan, who also happens to be the main funder of Northwestern's new stadium that opened a few weeks ago.

Um, there's, there's a general thought that the adults, so to say, are in the room that, uh, after several years and especially over the past few months of, of, uh, at times frustrating negotiations back and forth between the team and state lawmakers.

Um, you know, various blow ups, uh, that resulted in them leaving town after the spring session without passing anything that they can get something done in the veto session.

So if you recall, they passed two bills in May, uh, one in April, one in May.

The House passed one Senate passed one, but they couldn't agree on it.

Um, one was more similar to what the bears wanted, uh, a payment in lieu of taxes proposal that would basically allow them to negotiate their property tax rate for 30 years, be privately owned.

Um, the one that passed the Senate was a public ownership model that would basically allow for the stadium to be publicly owned.

Bears would avoid paying property taxes altogether.

Um, the general thought is that the, the public ownership model is probably the most politically viable because that is site neutral, which means that, uh, in theory, both Arlington Heights and the City of Chicago can compete for a stadium that would help attract votes from Chicago legislators that were a bit hesitant to back something that would allow the bears to leave.

Uh, so currently the, uh, they're doing their, uh, I mean, they're talking, um, you know, they're trying to get something teed up for the veto session.

Uh, I think it's a positive sign that, that they're doing this weeks before and not, you know, when they're back in Springfield.

Uh, as you know, the veto session is very fast.

It's only six days.

Uh, there's other stuff they have to do as well.

Um, so, uh, there is some optimism.

Uh, there is some genuine optimism, but at the same time, you know, the clock is ticking.

Um, you know, I know there's been a lot of different deadlines that have been set, um, that, that have been kind of artificial.

But, but there is a general belief that if this doesn't happen, this doesn't go in veto session that, um, that, that might be it.

Because eventually, I mean, the the bears are not going to wait around forever.

They need resolution on where they're going to play a few years down the line.

And obviously, the state of Illinois has other things that it needs to address and can't keep, you know, having this hanging over.

So I have a feeling it's going to be a very, very, uh, momentous veto session on the bears.

Um, you know, and, uh, we will have to see, you know, what, uh, what developments come out of it, um, in the next few weeks leading up to veto session, uh, what more we learn, but, um, but there seems to be some optimism, uh, which you couldn't really say that back back in June and July.

>> Mitch, I wanted to throw the question back to you.

Toss it back to you.

But is this just a case of each, the brinksmanship, the oh my gosh, they're moving to Indiana.

Is it just is this just negotiations or where do you think we're headed?

Have there been hard feelings or do you, as you see these negotiations playing out?

>> Yeah, I mean, I guess that's sort of the $3 billion question.

However big the tax break the bears will end up getting might be, uh, this does feel different.

Sort of the just kind of the general mood around it, certainly from the governor has been a lot rosier.

Um, talk to some of the negotiators in the General Assembly.

They're sounding more optimistic, not, you know, not gloating about any potential deal that might certainly pass, uh, in the next month or so.

But, you know, back in May, the sense was that, uh, we got to pass something.

We'll pass a bill out of the House, we have to show some movement.

We have to show the bears that we're serious about this.

Um, you know, that Indiana threat really did, uh, move the needle.

Uh, for all the criticism the bears have gotten throughout this process, from all sides, from us in the media, from lawmakers and lobbyists about just sort of the wishy washy nature that they've kind of gone about this, you know, uh, first the big plan was to, uh, go to Arlington.

Then they had this big plan to build a new stadium next to Soldier Field that was kind of roundly criticized by everyone before that, literally before that press conference was even over.

Um, say what you will about all that, but, uh, their decision last fall to, to make this, uh, thinly veiled threat to move to Indiana kind of lit a fire under Governor Pritzker and lawmakers to, um, and yeah, I mean, I think the sense now is that, you know, this is the iron is as hot as it's been.

Um, if you ask Darren Bailey, he says that's, you know, convenient pre-election, uh, sort of, uh, rosy glasses to wear about this.

You know, he claims that, you know, he's just trying to sort of win over voters.

Again, I don't know that this is the decisive issue for a lot of folks looking at their ballot right now, certainly not, um, outside the Chicago area necessarily.

Um, so yeah, what, what, I guess what kind of stands out to me is that, uh, after all this time, you know, when this, when the bears first, uh, you know, announced their deal to acquire the old Arlington International Racecourse.

You know, the thought was that this is a family that's wanted to own their own stadium, uh, for a long time.

They want to reap all the benefits that they can from a stadium.

They want to lower their property tax requirement.

And, you know, there was a sense that, you know, we were moving away from sort of public ownership models.

Uh, lo and behold, five years later, it really feels like that's kind of the way we're going.

Uh, whether or not that ends up in Chicago or the suburbs.

Um, but we'll see.

There's still, there's still plenty of time for, uh, things to fall apart, as they often do not to be a total pessimist here, but, uh, it's going to be a fascinating session.

Yeah, yeah.

>> And, and, and one thing I'll add very, very quickly to that.

Senator Bill Cunningham, who's the stadium lead in the Illinois Senate, was on a White Sox podcast recently, and he addressed the bears stadium situation, too.

And he said, and I quote, I said throughout this process that I think Indiana was completely started as a bluff.

But a lot of poker players have ended up playing bluff hands.

And the bears very much, very much end up doing that.

Uh, so that Indiana is still a possibility.

Uh, even if maybe it started as kind of a, you know, some may say an empty threat, but, you know, the fact is there is still more than $1 billion of taxpayer funds that have already been promised by Hoosier lawmakers, which is a pretty sweet deal that, uh, they are not going to get from Illinois.

>> Uh, they well, ace in the hole, I don't know, they've got that.

They've got that backup something up their sleeve.

If they need to fall back that we have just under two minutes.

Um, Brendan, I want to maybe finish up with you.

What else are we looking at in the General Assembly in the last minute and a half that we have here for the veto session?

>> I think the big thing besides the bears is going to be data centers.

Uh, there's been such an outcry from, you know, across party lines to, uh, rein in their growth and development.

Uh, we saw, uh, Governor Pritzker pause the tax credit, the state's tax credit for data centers, uh, in the spring.

Uh, they tried to get something more comprehensive across the line.

Uh, they could not.

Uh, so that's going to be a big priority.

Uh, a big thing would be, uh, making data centers, uh, bring their own energy, uh, because they use a lot of energy.

They use a lot of water, a lot of electricity.

Uh, you know, they, they, lawmakers don't want that passed on to ratepayers.

Uh, so I think that is going to be probably priority.

You know, the bears are one a that's one B um, and, and so I, I would expect that to be top of the agenda.

There's been talk about maybe some ethics reform related to kind of what Mitch was talking about with the Harry Benton situation, reforming the legislative inspector general process.

But Governor Pritzker said a couple of weeks ago that that might have to wait until the spring.

Uh, again, it's only six days.

They often cancel days.

So I would say bears and data centers are the two top line items to keep an eye out for.

>> Definitely.

Well, uh, Mitch and Brennan, it was a pleasure talking to you today.

Thanks for joining us.

>> Thank you.

>> Thank you Brian.

>> And again, make sure you get out and vote.

Next week.

We'll have a wrap up of or as much as we can of the elections.

Thank you for joining us for this week's edition of Capitol View.

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