Governor Bruce Rauner gave rip-roaring speeches in several Democratic legislative districts last week denouncing the state's Democratic leadership. All of his visits were accompanied by Illinois Republican Party press releases bashing area Democratic legislators for being in the back pockets of House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton.
Some are warning that this tour is only making it more difficult to cut a budget deal before the government shuts down. By belittling legislators in front of their constituents, Rauner is risking that those lawmakers will get their backs up and switch to a campaign-war footing, just like the governor appears to be doing. When that happens, they won't want to cooperate.
But if you look at the numbers, Rauner did quite well in all of those districts.
The governor won 15 of the current 39 Democratic Senate districts last year, some by quite a lot. Despite what you may read, many of the Democrat-drawn districts are not prohibitively partisan.
Add in all the Republican Senate districts he won, and Rauner took 35 Senate districts to then-Governor Pat Quinn's 23, and came very close to Quinn in one other (Senator Linda Holmes').
The governor was in Democratic Senator Gary Forby's deep-southern-Illinois district last week. Rauner stomped Quinn 62-31.
That same day, Gov. Rauner appeared in the Metro East, an area represented by Democratic Senators Bill Haine and James Clayborne. Rauner won both of those districts as well, 56-38 and 48-47.5, respectively.
Rauner also stopped in Democratic Representative Mike Smiddy's Quad Cities-area district, which he won last year 55-41.
The Rauner folks are most likely looking at these results and thinking that their guy can help take out some of those Democrats next year.
Yet all of those Democrats have withstood Republican victories at the top of the ticket in past years. Forby, who was first elected to the House 14 years ago, is a prime example. The House and Senate Republicans have spent millions of dollars attempting to unseat him because they've long recognized that his district isn't nearly as Democratic as his winning margins would suggest.
Partisanship is only one consideration when drawing district maps. Most are drawn because the incumbents or certain types of candidates can win them. Forby is a wildly pro-coal social conservative and NRA poster boy and, simply put, his people love him. There's a good reason why Rauner used a recording of Forby (without Forby's permission, of course) attacking Quinn in a campaign robocall.
Presidential cycleds are also quite different from "off" years, when governors run. Next year will be tougher to defeat these legislators because Democrats tend to vote in much higher numbers during presidential elections.
Even so, the Democrats know that next year will be unlike any other because of Rauner's pledge to spend $20 million during the campaign targeting 20 Democrats for defeat. That means they will not have a financial advantage for the first time in decades.
Rauner's $20-million pledge was first reported by Champaign News-Gazette reporter Tom Kacich. A prospective Republican candidate told Kacich that Rauner let him in on the secret while asking him to run.
If the governor follows through, though, he might want to rethink using his recently created independent-expenditure PAC, Turnaround Illinois.
Why? Well, state law prohibits coordination between independent-expenditure committees and candidates. Promising to spend a million bucks each on 20 people to lure candidates into the race may very well be deemed coordination.
There are ways around all of this, of course. Money always finds a way.
Candidates could bust the state's contribution caps on their own by contributing at least $100,000 to their campaign funds (perhaps even by taking out loans from certain wealthy individuals), which would then allow Rauner and his pals to give as much money to the candidates as they desired. Rauner could also funnel money through the state party, which could then spend on behalf of the candidates. Or he could funnel his cash through a "dark money" committee.
Whatever the case, the House Democrats recently distributed a guide to some of their members about how to deal with Republican "trackers" - people who are paid to follow politicians around with video cameras and catch them in awkward positions.
Democrats are being advised to stick strictly to their "middle class" talking points and avoid any sort of conflict, among other things.
The Democrats say they feel fairly confident about their odds, but they're obviously worried about what's about to hit them.
Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax (a daily political newsletter) and CapitolFax.com.
