Chicago Progressives’ Midterms Performance Actually Wasn’t That Bad

[marmar]

from In These Times:


Chicago Progressives’ Midterms Performance Actually Wasn’t That Bad
Far from wringing their hands about last week’s election’s implications, Chicago progressives should take heart at their performance.

BY MARILYN KATZ


I just hate it when reporters write before they read and think, as Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dan Mihalopoulos did in his November 5 polemic against Chicago progressives, charging they didn’t turn out voters and speculating that their prospects for the municipal elections are bleak.

So I went through the real numbers and compared them against Mihalopoulos’s claims. Union and other progressive organizations, take heart. You did pretty well on Election Day. The Latino and black wards you targeted did well, mostly gaining votes and delivering them to your target. White folks, not so much.

In order to get a more accurate picture than the simple knee-jerk “Rauner won so Chicago progressives failed” message, you have to look at election turnout ward by ward.

My analysis comes from examining the Chicago Board of Elections data at the ward level. To begin with, while it might not be much solace to him, Gov. Pat Quinn won Chicago with a margin of victory over Rauner that was 1.4 percent higher than his margin over Brady when he won office in 2010.

.....(snip).....

In fact, five African-American wards and four Hispanic wards actually gained votes. And all voted for Quinn by enormous majorities, with many topping 90 percent or higher. That’s in sharp contrast to the 12 majority- or plurality-white wards where 2,000 or more voters who voted in 2010 didn’t show up last week. All majority- or plurality-white wards saw a drop of about 35,000 votes in total—compared to a loss of roughly 18,000 votes in majority-black and -Latino wards. Whites make up roughly one-third of the city, yet accounted for twice as many voter no-shows as blacks and Latinos, who make up almost two-thirds of the city. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/17358/chicago_progressives_midterms_performance_actually_wasnt_that_bad