Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the perfunctory podcast, a series where candid conversations meet at the crossroads of politics, policy, and personal experience. Hosted by Mike Zalewski, the podcast brings together leaders, thinkers, and insiders to reflect on the decisions shaping Illinois.
Speaker: Here we go. Three days out. Welcome, Ron Holmes. Hey, man. How are you? I'm great. Happy St. Paddy's Day. Happy St. Patrick's Day. and happy GOTV weekend.
Speaker: the The weekend seems very Chicago right now, right? Cold, like green. Yeah. I don't know what to make of any of that. Yeah. I mean, I can't think of two better Irishmen than you and I. Yeah, no kidding. To be meeting right outside of Wacker Drive right now. Totally. Totally. I scream Irish. There's no doubt about that.
Speaker: The last time I had you on, my first question to you on, I think it was like February 5th, was like who's coming out to vote? America Future PAC, which is one of the super PAC, ah did a poll that got released on Friday that showed the lieutenant governor in the lead.
Speaker: Not only in the lead, but her voters that come out first. Yeah. What do you think of that? Yeah, there's a lot of polling flying around right now. And some of it, I think, is for messaging purposes to give people an excuse to say, hey, it's okay to go this way.
Speaker: um And I think there are there's also some legitimate polling that's showing that this is a two-person race. And so the question you know really is, i I think by every standard, we knew that um the undecideds, which a lot of them were black,
Speaker: black women specifically, were looking for a credible candidate to vote for. um I believe that often black voters are the most practical voters there are, right? Like they're they're not throwing away votes, et cetera. And so what we may be seeing is that amongst those undecideds, they finally said like, okay, like this is somebody that I can vote for because this is somebody that can win.
Speaker: I don't know if I sent you last night the issues most important part of that poll. Did you happen to see it? No. It's out there. It came out late last night.
Speaker: You haven't seen it. Take a guess. I'm going to guess that despite all the ads we've seen on ICE, that it was not on the top of the list. It was not ICE. I'm shocked. Further down the list. Yeah. And so were they economic issues? Economic and affordability, number one. Yeah. And we talk about that often, you and I, on this podcast, that um We've got to talk about kitchen table issues more, not only as Democrats, but i just think generally. um And so early spending in this race, and I think, quite frankly, even as I looked at the inventory today, abolished Trump's ICE or I'm going to eliminate ICE or Kristi Noem. And it's like all these things, I think we talked about this a month ago,
Speaker: There was a chance that this issue was going I don't want to say go away, but certainly subside. And what we've seen is Christy Nome is now gone. And amongst the candidates, who has an economic vision that people can you know actually depend on?
Speaker: I'm going to give you a clue of the next most important issue that is not economics and affordability. It zag zagged a little after that. Okay. um Housing? No.
Speaker: Existential. Existential. um
Speaker: Protecting the vote? Threat to democracy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're a voter that is really worried about your utility bill or your property taxes, and you're also really freaked out that we're starting to fray beyond...
Speaker: be the be ability to reel it back in. yeah And you've decided to vote for the lieutenant governor. And I don't know what to make of that. i I think the Lieutenant Governor's campaign has been really, really sharp. I think it's been adaptable. I think it read the room early. And i and you said this on the last podcast. it it They were able to distill information and make a quick decision that there was a lane available to them that wasn't available to Congressman Christian Morty or Congresswoman Kelly.
Speaker: And now I think you and I are left to figure out if it's a coalition of black women and progressive voters that um and probably a little bit jb aligned voters yeah who does that help the rest of the way yeah yeah like in illinois nine who does that help yeah i i mean it's interesting because the the through line on a lot of these races isn't just jb but it's also tammy duckworth and who she's backing um and i i think when we look up on wednesday um
Speaker: I think a lot of people are putting pressure on like, oh, how's JV going to do with a couple of his races? But ah Tammy has really been out there in a way that hasn't been very vocal. Right. But she has put markers down, I think, on a couple of key races and giving folks unnecessary boosts that like she didn't necessarily have to provide.
Speaker: in In nine, however, um you know, you and I talked about this, that ultimately you've got this need to have a fighter. But also need to have someone that's experienced.
Speaker: Elizabeth Warren comes into town for Daniel Biss. J.S. Schachowski is also with Daniel Biss. And, you know, at this point, it seems like it's going to be Daniel's race by all indications.
Speaker: Despite the amount of spending that's happened, you know, for other candidates in the race, it just seems like Daniel is is starting to settle in a little bit. I tend to agree. I think that this that race became really online in a hurry. And it became this this sort of emblematic race of what it means to be a true progressive versus what it means, quite frankly, to be APEC-funded. mean, that district has...
Speaker: a very strong Jewish population. yeah and yeah and for it to have gone in this direction, i think surprises a lot of people. And i think there's going to, do you think people are going take away the wrong lessons from that specific race?
Speaker: If Daniel pulls it out, I don't know, because I think to Daniel's credit, he's been very pliable over the course of the campaign.
Speaker: And um where he did not see opportunities, he went in the completely opposite direction. right And so I think ultimately the question is going to be you know whether or not AIPAC you know And again, I think Laura is an amazing legislator. She's been turning to like – I'm going to be self-deprecating here. Like she's going turn into like this Zaleski Southwest Side Democrat that like mouth breather. When Laura Fine is even 18 months ago was a left of center, state senator who fought for insurance coverage for –
Speaker: ah maladies that were previously uncovered by big insurance and her ads you know showing that at the beginning of the race were really solid. And there's been this caricature of her that's just insane to me.
Speaker: Yeah. And, you know, i that race, you know, there was a town hall or a forum up there where they were holding up signs. And and again, and it... and it it's It's scary to me because they were asking politicians binary questions that were very nuanced.
Speaker: And if we're heading there, I know that you know Leader Cunningham has been on your podcast about like if if it's that simple for folks, our politics is going to get really complicated really soon. And the coalitions that we need to build are not going to exist. Right.
Speaker: When you agree on everything, those moments yeah become too important for, I would argue, grassroots issues-based groups that want to lay a marker down yeah um to pass up because it's really the only way to – set your marker down, I think, ask Vice President Harris. Yeah. she was at of when that When that moment happened about that bill, she was at a forum on a specific and a specific group's desires, and like that's that's what ended up happening. And I think there's been Jonathan Martin pieces of
Speaker: We've got to get away from litmus test in the party, and we've got to make sure that you don't you don't lose one specific group. specific group bailing on you doesn't totally derail the entirety of your campaign, and I don't know how much that's going to resonate.
Speaker: I was at Finkston last week, and he asked me a really good question about the connective tissue between um when people ask about, on a polling memo, what would make you least likely to vote for a candidate and an ad buyer's ability to translate that into a commercial that resonates with people.
Speaker: I made the case that that's not really firing very well right now. I think a lot of people saw in polling memos Trump donor, APEC aligned, ICE vendor contribution, and they decided that if you just said that in an ad, you were going to bring down negatives. yeah And my point was, APO is really kind of on its own thing at this moment it's not working the way it used to yeah do you see it that way i i do and but i i also believe that from a sequencing point of view you know you and i also talked about this like a lot of this oppo is coming very late and
Speaker: um the idea that folks have gone through multiple forums and like some of these messages are just coming together, i find to be slightly perplexing yeah because I firmly can't believe that a candidate or actually every candidate in that U.S. s Senate race has gone through a primary of some type. And so someone has a book on them even previous to this race, right? And so it is kind of perplexing that like we're just starting to hear this now.
Speaker: And I don't know if it's, um and don't know if some of it is like the desire to feel like, oh, I'm negative campaigning. But like in this moment, you're also talking about fighting everything. And so it's just like, why not lay these things out there in a concrete way that people can understand? I don't think it's that. I think the memos reflect when people are being asked in the comforts of their own home. In ah in a text message poll, if Candidate X made you, if you knew that he was a planeteer, gave him a donation, would that make you less like less likely to vote for that person? It's easy to hit that switch and i say, of course, um I brain rot from all the cable news I've been watching. yeah Of course, that would mean to make me do that.
Speaker: But that requires the voter to make the connection between yourself and Raja Krishnamurti is a great example. I know Raja. Yeah. I mean, like, that's the guy that took the Planeteer money. Maybe maybe maybe I misread what I thought I knew about that particular donation. yeah And then it's too late. You've already built the ad. You've already ran the campaign against it. You've already decided that that's going to be worth ah a finite amount of investment in ah in a broadcast ad.
Speaker: And you're not seeing numbers move um in a way that you need. Conversely, it's probably helping the lieutenant governor right now. I think the opposition against her, like Mike Madigan. like Does anyone think the lieutenant governor is a Mike Madigan stooge? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. It's not, there's just no landing there, you know? I mean, it's it's also interesting, too, because, like, even the Mike Madigan stuff, it's like, you know, in all honesty, I think most folks in Illinois i feel like that's three or four chapters ago at this point. And trying to connect Democrats just to all things Mike Madigan is not a a winning strategy at this point.
Speaker: Right. And you may see it and think it it's got legs, and then you decide ultimately it does not. Yeah. County races. Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker: think I've really noticed it in the beginning of the belief that some of these county-wide incumbents were going to have problems. I think what you've seen thus far in the ads and the way that people have approached These races, there's nothing that's dissuaded for me from the idea that there's real, like if you were sports better, which I am, there was a parlay, a round robin card of the president and Fritz Kage and one upset. I don't know that you would have a hard time not thinking that someone comes away on election night being like, oh man, my voters didn't come out to vote that night.
Speaker: Yeah, I, ah it's interesting because the president hasn't spent a lot of money. and I think there's a reality that stable leadership might win the day, which is good because the issues that are out there are very hard to explain.
Speaker: and But i also wonder, Mike, is in the event that that parlay exists, right, where all the incumbents do okay, does the Cook County Democratic Party look up on Wednesday and say, like, everything is fine?
Speaker: no need to make adjustments, no need to change our messaging, etc. um mean, just functionally, when we talk about the president, not in her governmental role, but also her role as party chief, you have...
Speaker: every like organization is a part of the Cook County Democratic umbrella. they've got They're on their own like time right now. there There was a time where like you didn't have slate cards in different areas. like Right now, what we're seeing for down-ballot races across Cook County, like people are making their own decisions as committeemen, and like it is mind-boggling to like watch that.
Speaker: And I wonder if we look up on Wednesday, and it's just like, well, it all worked out, so like, No big deal. Well, there's a slate, right? yeah The essence of a slate is that it performs as a unit, cohesive unit, against the grain. yeah And well you to your point, we'll know based on the slate's performance whether you what you're seeing is correct. Do you think black women, Juliana voters who came out early and were worried about affordability are going to have coattails to help the Cook County Board President?
Speaker: Do you think there's connective tissue in those two? I don't. I don't. Just separate it aside from the polling that we've seen, there there probably are not a lot of non-Tony Parkwinkle supporters that exist in the Giuliano world.
Speaker: um There are not lot. I want to make sure I understand. the The Venn diagram is pretty tight, right? you think there is You think it's almost a circle. Yeah, I really do. I can't imagine just based on where Giuliano comes from,
Speaker: um and the areas that she served. I don't see that as a legitimate thing. And Juliana today has nine, 10 years of government experience. She's no longer the fresh face that she was when she ran for state rep. So I think that most people view her as, specifically amongst black women, someone that served as lieutenant governor, as a high-ranking official in the state, and I think people respect the president for the same reasons.
Speaker: Property taxes aren't an X factor there? I don't think anybody blames Juliana for property taxes. Well, but if you're a black woman voter that voted for the lieutenant governor, but your property tax bill went up substantially. I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I even think about, like, Tony's run for mayor and and the black women that stood with her. Like, I just, it black women like Tony Prackwinkle.
Speaker: That's just kind of a. If that if that's the case, then i i my spidey sense is off. I think then – You think there's a divide? I think – You think there's enough folks that say like, hey, um Cook County is a mess. I don't understand why my property tax bill went up.
Speaker: Tony and Fritz are to blame. I'm going to vote for Juliana but not for these two. I think – Juliana is picking up some left of center voters in that if we're to believe that America future poll she's not only getting black women that have voted early and are pretty disgusted with their grocery bills she's also picking up people that feel like Schumer has to go and ICE has to be abolished completely and there can't be any capitulation out in DC I don't know if the if President Preckwinkle
Speaker: is carrying those same voters who are super motivated in that way, if we're to believe what we believe by American Future. I i do want to talk a little bit about super PAC spending in this race these races generally yeah because so the American Future is an example. Yeah.
Speaker: that's the only polling we're getting. We're getting candidate polling and we're getting super PAC polling. yeah We're not getting independent. tributene I don't even know if they're doing a poll before Tuesday. yeah So how much of this data is real and how much of it can we rely on? And if you're ah if you're ah at ah if you're on a messaging team going into the weekend and clearly you have your own internals, are you over worried that you're skewing skewing your own polls right now?
Speaker: So, you know, I think when we look back to 47th's general election, and there was a lot of talk then about polls and were they capturing folks accurately and were folks afraid to say who they would vote for.
Speaker: And then we got to the municipal race here. And we saw the Brandon Ballas thing play out. And we said again, oh, my God, these pollsters, they don't have it right all the time.
Speaker: What are we going to do? And now what we have landed on is an environment in which legacy media, to your point, hasn't provided. I mean, like since that WGN poll, which I thought was pretty solid. Yeah. um Since that Emerson poll came out, we haven't seen anything else.
Speaker: And I don't know if that's a function of newsrooms not having money or newsrooms simply saying, like, we don't want to put something out there that might be completely false bold later on. could be both. And so fast forward, what we've seen is polling from IE groups, not even not necessarily like the internals, which I, you know, feel some type of way about because, again, i think that there are folks in that camp that have access to the best polling in the world. um
Speaker: And not seeing them put their name on a memo gives me some pause. um but and But we've also kind of seen like this, you know, IE polling, right? And so like, it's it's got, in my mind, again, there's a couple things that these polls do. One is they drive the narrative, which, again,
Speaker: Is it Stratminum? Is that what we're calling it? I think so. At the moment, it could change any second, hence the Nick moniker. So it it gives it legitimacy, right? and And, you know, I think that's important. It's it's interesting also when you think about aisle nine, what's happened there.
Speaker: You know, Senator Fine puts out a poll, I think, right the day that we did our last podcast. um And we haven't necessarily seen her proactively offer another one. Right. Right. And so, you know, these poll memos are tricky because i I firmly believe that, like, if you have something great to say, you're probably going to say it from the rooftops.
Speaker: And if you don't, and if you're skittish, you're probably allowing other people to drive the narrative. Right. I think what you just touched on is what we're seeing is a massive amount of undecided voters in these polls.
Speaker: any given day. On any given day. Back and forth. the the The real crazy aspect of that is it is going to be five below Tuesday morning. And I don't know if people are like, I just don't care. i don't want to make up my mind. I am not coming out to vote.
Speaker: And then the cake is baked. What you get going into Tuesday is what you have. And that is um couple of other things, and we'll get you out of here.
Speaker: a smart political observer messaged me last week about it was framed as what's coming down the line in the city elections. Think of it as a best-of-five NBA series.
Speaker: kim Kim Fox versus Bill Conway. Ellen O'Neal-Burke versus Clayton Harris. um Brandon Johnson versus Paul Vallis.
Speaker: We now will have Tony Preckwinkle against Brendan Riley. Probably next year, Brandon Johnson against Axe.
Speaker: are we just going to keep ping-ponging there? Is that what this is going to be? do you Do you think a trend, or do you see it being a marginal grudge match for the next – I'm talking about Chicago specifically, and Cook County specifically for the next generation?
Speaker: It's interesting because – you trying to guess who texted me that? No, I'm not. and I'm also just thinking through through line, and there are there are some – there's some racial dynamics there. For sure. Um, and there are, there are some, in my mind,
Speaker: um
Speaker: there there's some there's some increased focus on what that left movement or progressive movement looks like versus also what that right kind of safety movement looks like. And I think on both sides of the pendulum, as we mentioned the undecided voters, I think both sides are trying to figure it out. And so we haven't we haven't necessarily seen a moderate run against someone to the left or someone to the right.
Speaker: And so what i' what I'm interested to see as it relates to the mayoral is do we get another scenario where it's just a very binary choice, right, a very progressive Brandon Johnson versus a very lock-em-up type, it won't be Paul Vallis, but a Paul Vallis type, right, an Illinois Policy Institute type person?
Speaker: Or do we find ourselves with the second person that runoff, assuming that Brandon makes a runoff? if the second person in that runoff is more of a moderate. and And that is the question I think that I'm i'm interested to see because if that person is a moderate, I think that's a true true litmus test of like where we are as a county and as a city.
Speaker: That person being – moderate is in the eye of the beholder there. And what I mean by that is there's a lot of Twitterverse. ah There's a – talk about Venn diagrams of like Illinois Policy Institute cut pensions. Pensions are the problem. Law and order. the streets are run amok. No one can walk safely down Michigan Avenue.
Speaker: Up against – what I would call traditional Democrat liberalism. yeah And the moderate against the mayor next spring will have to wear a lot of things that he or she ordinarily wouldn't yeah yeah associate themselves with. You're going to be this perceived savior against Brandon Johnson's Chicago. And it comes with a lot. And and i I don't, the reason I ask that question is,
Speaker: People are going to draw a ton of conclusions based on Tuesday. They're going to overgeneralize literally everything. And I think there's going to be an immediate pivot to not November, which couldn't matter less. Yeah, absolutely. But February runoff. Absolutely.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's completely right. And it' to your point, there's going lot of – wannabe candidates that are going be like, oh, yeah, there's a lane for me here. Right. Like, didn't you see what happened in, you know, a random down ballot race for county commissioner or or state rep? And and folks are going decide to run.
Speaker: But again, i i am interested in terms of, like, where that middle is. And and youre you're you're right. it's it's It's really interesting because if you're a moderate candidate in the city that's just the anti-Brandon You're going to look out over your shoulder and to see groups that typically you aren't aligned with. Correct.
Speaker: And you're going to be like... Ugh, right? like But at the same time, you're going be like, I need these votes. right And so it's kind of, I mean, I would pay to like just watch the beep-like reality show up of someone navigating those rooms of folks that, you know again, like they typically wouldn't give the time of day to. well And if I'm advising a mayoral candidate heading into the summer and the fall, you're not going anywhere near forum until we have a sense yeah of what where we are on any number of issues, until we know what happened in November. until we have a really grounded approach to the coalition we think we have to build to get 50.1% of the vote in April. Because if you do anything really reckless in that ramp up –
Speaker: It's going to be used against you in a really difficult way, and you could kiss this goodbye before you even know it's available to you. Yeah, I'll i'll give you an example. there There was a story about Brandon's Jesse Jackson kind of buffer zone bill ordinance that he wanted to move. and you know It's got some, I think, policy issues that people are trying to work out.
Speaker: But one of the you know wannabe mayoral candidates wound up in that story. And it's just like this is not a story that you want to be a part of. Right. Like why drag yourself into this? And I think, again, like people are so desperate, I think, to be on the opposite side of Brandon, there are going to be issues that there's like, hey, like you might want to just take a walk on this one. Yeah. You might want to actually be with the mayor on this one.
Speaker: And how folks navigate that specifically in the city council is going to really interesting to watch. Which, by the way, I went to the Mayor's City Club event, and that was a forum that took him out of his comfort zone a little bit. And he was personable. He made the room laugh. yeah He was very self-deprecating.
Speaker: I think there's been a lot of obituaries written thus far, which is It's not unreasonable to do But don't know you – reasonable to to do that but i don't know that you can accurately assess at the moment what's going to happen in February I think the temporal nature of politics right now is is a real thing and and i I'm interested to see if it it stays the way it stays for a while yeah his his soft skills I think are something that are drastically underestimated and as I travel the country like people it's amazing what their views are of Brandon versus kind of the echo chamber that exists here in the city of Chicago at times yeah
Speaker: Election night, where are you going to I'll be WGN starting from 7 and 9. Are going to wear a tie? or You know that's a great question i i thought about maybe doing ah a bow tie a little bit um but like i i don't know like i i might go tylus i i also don't want to clash yeah know to like do these things yeah where are you gonna be on i'm gonna be a wgn as well that's going after you uh i i think i'm gonna come on for the second shift i am wearing a full necktie you're way um skinnier than i am and can wear a bow tie i have worn them and
Speaker: It's tough's tough. It's tough to pull You were a temporary member of the Boatsy. Yeah, I can try. i can i can ease my way into it. Ron. You're always very kind with your time. i know people that I talk to about the podcast very much appreciate these podcasts. I know people listen to them. so That's what you tell me that's i They do. We do. We get data. we have and we have a We have a niche listener base, but a mighty one.
Speaker: So enjoy the rest of your week and enjoy St. Patrick's Day, and we'll see you Tuesday. All right, bud. Take care.
