Democratic Party of Illinois

I wouldn't say confident, but I would say optimistic.

I spoke with Ben Hardin, the executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois.

And, you know, he detailed some of their strategy includes a twofold approach to the election.

And one of those goals is to elect as many Democrats as they physically can.

They ...

Really, I, I spoke with, uh, one of the directors of the Illinois Democratic Party, and they told me that they're taking a two-prong approach to, you know, some of the different races across the state, and they are trying to support candidates up and down the ballot.

They see some quite large opportunities to pick up seats for the State House, uh, you know, potentially even at the congressional level with, uh, you know, we have three Republican, uh, congressmen here in Illinois, but they see potential opportunity to, uh, unseat at least one of them, they think.

Um, but yeah, so they see, especially in, you know, suburb- suburban Chicagoland kinda going out toward more rural, uh, past Chicago, uh, you see a lot of different, uh, c- seats that are potentially up in the air for Republicans.

Yeah, she is a very extreme candidate.

So I think that, you know, D- Illinois Dem- Illinois residents, taxpayers, citizens are used to Democrats, but Juliana is a very extreme candidate.

She's exceptionally, uh, extreme, even by the, um, the standard of, uh, Chicago Democrats.

[laughs]

He's shaking his head and he's just scowling at me.

He's like, I love Illinois Democrats.

Yeah, I think that you're missing the silver lining here.

Democrats have caused such massive inflation from 2020 to 2024 that their exponential rise in gas prices actually hasn't kept up with inflation.

And that was a lot of fun.

And we have an office this year through help with the Democratic Party of Illinois.

So it's been great to have an office and have a presence in town.

Is that new for you guys? I mean, has it been?

How are you connecting with students at the university?

We have a campus captain, he's called, and he's been a firestorm out on working the campuses and getting volunteers out.

And he works very closely with Democratic Party of Illinois, and he has recruited 10 what they call fellows, which are interns that will help get out the vote on campus and get people registered.

And so we're very excited about that.

In spite of that, I was willing to hold my nose and make her senator on one condition.

If her father, the powerful House Speaker who'd been there for 43 years, Chairman of the Democratic Party of Illinois, would pass legislation that would further expand healthcare to working families, affordable healthcare, invest in infrastructure, highways, schools, hospitals, create tens of thousands of jobs, and put in writing a memorandum of understanding not to raise the income tax on the people of Illinois, because I was fearful of that, because for six years when I was governor, all the leading Democrats kept pushing for that income tax increase, and I was fearful they could override my veto.

So I wanted that deal.

I'd hold my nose, and I would make her Lisa Madigan the senator.