Primary Day Recap: Quinn-Rauner Battle Set; Guzzardi Stuns Berrios

By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 19, 2014 4:50PM

Well this is going to be a sexy race for Illinois Governor.

Another primary Election Day is over in Illinois and, as expected, voter turnout in Chicago was low—embarrassingly so.

Only 13 percent of registered voters in Chicago cast ballots Tuesday, fed up with a lack of high-profile races and seeing the same old names on Democratic ballots. The numbers fared only slightly better in the suburbs with 15 percent of registered voters doing so. More Republicans ballots were drawn in the suburbs than Democratic.

Those who did vote Republican nominated Bruce Rauner for governor this November. The Winnetka venture capitalist and carpetbagger narrowly edged Kirk Dillard for the nomination despite tossing $6 million of his own money into his political campaign. The spending will almost certainly not stop now that Rauner is heading into a general election battle with incumbent Gov. Pat Quinn, who handily defeated former CeaseFire Chicago executive director Tio Hardiman. Rauner said he expects a hard-fought election campaign against Quinn—one he will most likely attempt to buy with attack ads.

Rauner gave a taste of what’s to come in his acceptance speech Tuesday night.

“(Quinn is) a failure. We’re going to get him gone this November. That’s right,” Rauner yelled. “Get him out.”

Rauner was long presumed to be the Republican nominee in polls leading up to Tuesday but Dillard put on an impressive last-minute push to close the gap. Dillard said in his concession speech his campaign “came really close” to upsetting Rauner.

The other notable election news Tuesday came from Illinois’ 39th Legislative District where Will Guzzardi defeated incumbent Rep. Toni Berrios. Guzzardi, the 26-year-old former Huffington Post Chicago editor who came within 125 votes of defeating Berrios two years ago, had a comfortable margin of 1,843 votes despite Berrios’s backing by her father, Cook County Assessor and Democratic Party Chairman Joe Berrios, and Illinois House Majority leader Michael Madigan.

The Berrios-Guzzardi race was long nicknamed “Hispanics versus Hipsters” due to the 39th including Logan Square but there were other pissed-off voters besides hipsters who took to the polls to support Guzzardi. Despite Berrios campaign workers burying the district with flyers painting Guzzardi as a politician who would protect child molesters if elected, voters looked past the slimy dealings and cast a stunning rebuke of Berrios and, by extension, the old guard politicians backing her.

Carol Marin called this race the most important on the ballot because of the reverberations a Guzzardi win could have if he’s elected to the state House in November.

His supporters included three aldermen/committeemen whose wards are part of his district. They are three of only a handful of politicians who’ve been willing to buck the system. Scott Waguespak (32nd), John Arena (45th) and Proco Joe Moreno (1st) are part of a progressive minority in Chicago’s City Council who have not walked in lockstep with either Mayor Rahm Emanuel or their rubberstamp colleagues in the majority.

“We are looking at a Milwaukee [Avenue] corridor of progressives, helping us on city level and state level,” said Waguespak. “It really upsets the system, striking at the heart of the Democratic Party.”

Guzzardi, who was campaigning even after polls closed Tuesday, knew his victory would not be taken lightly by the powers that be.

“There will be hell to pay,” he said, “one way or another.”

In other races, Sen. Dick Durbin easily won his primary battle, setting the stage for a general election showdown with milk magnate and career campaigner Jim Oberweis. Voters in Chicago supported referendums banning concealed carry in establishments that serve alcohol and magazine clips capable of holding more than 15 rounds of ammunition, while they rejected a referendum to raise taxi rates.