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York Township Democrats Endorse Peickert/Barton Ticket

The York Township Democratic Organization voted last night to endorse the ticket of Bob Peickert, Michelle Barton, and Bob Jeffers for DuPage County Democrats Chair, First Vice-Chair, and Treasurer, respectively. The vote was 16-0 in favor of the endorsement, with two abstentions. All currently active officers of the York organization (Chair Bob Wagner, First Vice-Chair Carol Davis, and Treasurer Steve Stawarz) were present and voted in favor of the endorsement, as did former York chair Doug Cole.

During the discussion which preceded the vote, YTDO members praised Peickert and Barton for generating unprecedented enthusiasm, willingness to listen to and work with groups outside the party such as the DuPage Ballot Integrity Project, running highly valuable training sessions, and inclusive team-building. Peickert and Barton were also viewed as the more likely slate to be able to contribute towards a movement towards meaningful reform of the state party.

York Township includes Oakbrook Terrace; most of Lombard, Oak Brook, and Villa Park; much of Elmhurst; and small portions of Downers Grove, Hinsdale, and Westmont. Out of the nine townships that comprise DuPage County, York had the highest number of Democratic ballots pulled per registered voter in both the 2006 and 2008 primaries.

Crunching Numbers

While Democrats in all nine DuPage townships are doing good work that deserves to be recognized, let's look at a few different measures to see where Democrats are doing the best:

A: Highest Democratic Ballots Pulled Per Registered Voter

1. York (25.6%)
2. Lisle (24.6%)
3. Addison (24.2%)

B: Lowest Republican Ballots Pulled Per Registered Voter

Low score wins here, like in golf.

1. Bloomingdale (14.8%)
2. Addison (16.2%)
3. Naperville (16.9%)

C: Highest Ratio of Democratic to Republican Ballots

1. Bloomingdale (1.54)
2. Addison (1.50)
3. Naperville (1.39)

Shorter Dana Perino

Five billion years from now, the sun will expand into a red giant, wiping out all life on Earth, so it can't be said that we have permanent bases anywhere.

Election results, and random thoughts (continued)

IL-14 is also a contested race, though it is mostly outside of Dupage. In Dupage alone, Bill Foster is comfortably ahead, and in the district as a whole Foster, barring any recounts, has narrowly edged out last year's nominee John Laesch.

Now let's look at our opposition on the Republican side. John McCain takes the Republican Presidential vote in Dupage with 57090 votes out of 107769, and seems poised to win the Republican presidential nomination. As always, with any mention of McCain we should put up this picture:


In the Senatorial race, physician Steve Sauerberg wins the Republican nomination and the honor of being stomped flat by Dick Durbin in November. Judy Biggert (R-13) defeats challenger Sean O'Kane. Noted milk magnate and homophobe Jim Oberweis wins the nomination in IL-14, and will face Foster in the special election to succeed Dennis Hastert.

In the County Board primaries, most of which were contested on the Republican side, inertia prevails, as incumbents defeat challengers. The exception to this is in District Four, where incumbent Thomas F. Bennington is knocked off by Woodridge trustee John Curran. These results are, one would surmise, bad news for County Board chair Schillerstrom, who backed Bennington as well as a number of challengers.

Election results, and random thoughts

(Updated to fix an error: I had inadvertently switched the Green and Republican vote numbers. Wishful thinking on my part, obviously.)

Here's the results for the Presidential race:

Clinton	48499
Obama	80690
other	2156

And in the contested IL-06 Congressional primary:

Jagla	12178
Morgenthaler	42187

Who the winners are here are hardly surprising. This is Obama's home state, and he is a popular Senator. Jagla was widely regarded as a longshot against the more experienced and charismatic Morgenthaler. But the real story here is in the magnitude of the numbers. Holy huge turnout, Batman! Let's compare the total number of ballots taken for the past few primaries:

Year	Democratic Ballots	Green Ballots	Republican Ballots
2004	63951	n/a	86993
2006	44184	n/a	98104
2008	131635	166	107769

While Republican turnout has been steadily increasing over the years, Democratic turnout just took a quantum leap upwards, to the point where more people in Dupage are pulling Democratic ballots than are pulling Republican ones. Is this the year we turn Dupage blue? Stay tuned.

Encouraging numbers

This information comes from Jon at DuPage Democrats HQ, who in turn got it from the election committers. As of closing on January 21, the following numbers of early voting ballots have been cast:

Democratic - 2661
Republican - 2000
Nonpartisan - 33
Green - 6

There are, of course, a number of possible explanations for this. Maybe Democrats are more likely to vote early. Maybe Republicans are voting absentee, or maybe a substantial number are crossing over because they don't like their party's Presidential choices this year. But it's hard to look at these numbers and not be optimistic about our chances for turning DuPage blue in the fall.