Illinois Statewide Mega-Thread: State has first budget in over a year

[Coolface Sock #42069]

If Chris Kennedy is going to run for governor he is going to have to do something about his "smile". My goodness its hard to look at.

It's a Russ Carnahan grimace.

Still better looking than Blagojevich.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

IL voters blame Madigan, not Rauner for impasse by a wide margin

The poll found that voters blame Madigan by a decisive 21-point margin, 55-34 percent, with just 9 percent saying "both" and a mere 2 percent saying they were undecided.

Who is to blame for the impasse? Rauner or Madigan?

Chicago: Rauner (52%-35%)
Suburban Cook County: Madigan (54%-36%)
Collar counties: Madigan (64%-27%) (!)
Downstate: Madigan (59%-29%)

Men: Madigan (62%-29%)
Women: Madigan (55%-38%)

I'd just like to remind everyone that Obama won Chicago with around 80% of the vote both times and won by huge margins in the collar counties and suburban Cook both times as well, and even won Downstate in 2008.

For such huge majorities in every part of the state except Chicago to back their Republican governor over their Democratic Speaker of the House is unprecedented. It's also crazy that only a bare majority in Chicago blames Rauner.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

I'm counting the days until 2018. With a 33% approval rating, Rauner should get absolutely humiliated.

2018 will be a D disaster under a Clinton presidency. Key democratic groups just don't vote in midterms in large enough numbers. Everyone (including me at times) said 2014 wasn't going to be as bad as 2010 was for Democrats, but it was. Senate races were a massacre, with the democrats only winning NH among those races considered competitive before election day, and nearly lost supposedly safe D Virginia. Governor races were a massacre, with Democrats only winning RI among races considered competitive before election day, while losing normally strong D Maryland and nearly losing Vermont to a sacrificial lamb. The only reason Republicans didn't pick up 50 or 60 house seats was because they hit their ceiling or close to it. Yeah if you tried you could get them to near 260 with the 2014 battleground map, just as you could with the 2010 battleground map, but you're never going to win every competitive seat out there. A recruiting bungle, a really good recruit by the other side, incumbent too entrenched, turnout problems, plain old bad luck - this will always screw up a few races even in the biggest of waves. 247 seats is the biggest republican house majority since the 1920s, I doubt they will ever get much higher, if they beat it at all.

After that, I'm done subscribing to any sort of theory that 2010/2014 is an anomaly. 2018 will be a D massacre under Clinton, and even under Trump I have trouble seeing it being anything more than a neutral year, provided he is not at bush 2006 approvals. 

Yeah, Rauner could be a Corbett. But he could also end up like this guy:









 

Illinois voters do not vote for governor based on national issues. The statewide partisan environment is very much different than the national one in the state.