Two Sangamon County races still too close to call

While national pundits were surprised by the strength of Donald Trump’s showing, local political observers found few surprises in Sangamon County. That said, the winners of two area races will not be known until Nov. 19.

The hotly contested race for Sangamon County recorder had Republican Frank Lesko ahead of Democrat Josh Langfelder by 68 votes at the end of Election Day.

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The race for the District 25 Sangamon County Board seat, which represents a portion of Springfield’s west side, also is too close to call. Republican Jennifer Ghesquiere Deaner leads her Democratic opponent, Jennifer Merritt, by a mere nine votes. Libertarian Russ Clark captured 270 votes in that race.

However, Sangamon County Board Chair Andy Van Meter retained his seat in District 24 by 181 votes, fending off a second challenge from Maureen Duffy Bommarito. First-time candidate Bommarito lost to Van Meter by 56.4% to 43.6% in 2022, but had hoped to capitalize on voters’ desire for change within the Sangamon County Sherriff’s Office, which is funded by the County Board. Van Meter was first elected to the board in 1994 and has served as chair for the past 24 years.

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As of Nov. 12, there were 444 mail-in and provisional ballots that have not yet been counted, Sangamon County Clerk Don Gray said. And 23 of those uncounted ballots were cast by residents of the district of the undecided county board race, he said.

Those ballots plus any that have yet to trickle in bearing postmarks of Nov. 5 or before will be counted at 9 a.m. Nov. 19, Gray said.

Provisional ballots, for the most part, are from residents who requested mail-in ballots but then chose to vote in-person at their precinct, Gray said.

“We’ve obviously had a tremendous expansion in vote by mail in recent years, so more people are utilizing it,” he said. “If you had not utilized your ballot by mail, statute requires you to have surrendered that ballot to election judges in the polling place, (where it) would be spoiled and a new ballot would be issued. And then (it) would be run through the tabulator.

“If you don’t have that (mail-in) ballot with you, we still want you to vote, but we have to confirm that it hasn’t come back to us. So, we have you vote provisionally. You would make your markings and it would go into this provisional folder and be returned to the election authority that evening to ensure that your ballot by mail isn’t returned to us, (too).”

Former U.S. Representative and Springfield native Cheri Bustos, a Democrat, found the races for presidency as well as for who controls each house of Congress disappointing, with Republicans taking control of the U.S. Senate and on track to maintain control of the U.S. House.

“I think we are a party that is led by consultants who almost all live on the coasts,” she said. “They don’t know our part of the country well at all. Are they making the right attempt to get to know voters who are increasingly going center right? And we had better start understanding it, or we will continue to have a long string of losses at a lot of levels.”

Trump did even better in Sangamon County than he did nationally, capturing 51.6% of the area’s vote versus 50.2% nationwide.

Patrick Pfingsten, who publishes the political newsletter Illinoize and is a morning host on WMAY radio, said the Democrats have themselves to blame for their poor showing in the presidential and congressional races.

“Democrats ran a terrible campaign. Joe Biden should have been out of the race in 2022. He should have come out after the midterms and said, ‘This isn’t for me anymore. I need to pass the baton.’ There should have been a real Democratic primary where whoever won – whether it was Vice President (Kamala) Harris, (California) Gov. Gavin Newsom or (U.S. Sen.) Elizabeth Warren – was tested and won the primary,” Pfingsten said.

“They put Kamala Harris in a nearly unwinnable position. …It was like, ‘I can’t go to the grocery store because the price of eggs, the price of milk, the price of gasoline to get there are all crushing and our property taxes are out of control. Our wages aren’t keeping up. What are you going to do about it, Madam Vice President?’ And what’s her answer? ‘Well, I grew up a middle-class kid.’ Give me a break. There was no real substance to her,” he said.

Racism and misogyny were elements in Harris’ defeat, said Sangamon County Democratic Party Chair Bill Houlihan.

“I would say (Trump) did better with working people,” he said. “Biden’s been the best union president America has ever had, in my opinion. But in this case, (workers) didn’t have enough on Harris. Being both an African American and a woman, with some men, it’s just hard for them to support a candidate like that, even though she would have been just as good for labor.”

Longtime Illinois political observer Mike Lawrence, the retired director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, said the election will have little effect on the power balance within Illinois government.

Locally, Illinois Rep. Mike Coffey, R-Springfield, defeated Democratic challenger Kristen Chiaro of Chatham for the 95th House seat. And Illinois Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, defeated Republican Lisa Smith of Mt. Auburn.

Regardless of the handful of tight legislative races where the outcomes will be unclear until all mail-in and provisional ballots are counted, it is certain Democrats will maintain veto-proof majorities in both the Illinois House and Senate, Lawrence said.

“I think the map has a great deal to do with that,” he said. “Under ordinary circumstances, it would be difficult for Republicans to gain seats in the districts that have been drawn by Democrats. But I also think voters in the suburbs are not as enamored with Trump as voters in the nation and in downstate Illinois.”

Former Gov. Pat Quinn championed a non-binding statewide referendum that would add a 3% surcharge on people with taxable incomes exceeding $1 million. The additional revenue would be applied to property tax relief. The measure passed with 60% of voters favoring it.

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However, for such an idea to become law, the Illinois Constitution would need to be amended to modify the state’s flat income tax provision. A majority of voters rejected a proposed amendment in 2020 to end the flat tax. But Quinn told Illinois Times a question on the 2026 ballot could get more support if it states a tax rate, an income threshold and explains where the funds would go.

“It’s a step toward fairness in the Illinois tax code that is (currently) generous to millionaires, with many favors and loopholes,” he said. “They get the tax breaks, when the average property taxpayer gets the higher tax bill.”

But Lawrence was dismissive of the non-binding resolution’s significance.

“In some respects, the question about taxing millionaires was like voting for motherhood,” he said. “I mean, the best tax for most people is a tax on the other guy.”

This article appears in Low attendance holds back school performance.