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| Usual and Unusual in Last Week's Primary Election |
For the most part, a local political science instructor says last Tuesday's primary elections were odd even by Illinois standards.
Carl Sandburg College political science professor Jim Graham says given that Illinois politics is already unusual, you couldn't have written a script that had the outcome of both the Democratic and Republican governor's races being so close.
Graham tells WGIL he had a feeling both the Gubernatorial primaries would be so close, but especially one over the other.
"I was thinking myself, the night before the election, that the Democratic race was going to be extremely tight," Graham said. "I was thinking to myself, 'this is a really good reason for people to get out and vote.'"
Problem is, Graham says, with voter turnouts of 19 percent in Galesburg, and 17-percent in the rest of Knox County, many people simply did not, despite the millions spent on advertising, and whatever time was spent on campaigning.
Graham tells WGIL he thinks turnout might pick up in November.
"When the Congressional elections roll around...in November, we'll probably see about 35% to 40% -- and that's the general election," Graham said. "Americans are certainly poor voters, and we see this particularly in primaries."
Graham says he thinks comptroller Dan Hynes was right to concede the Democratic Gubernatorial primary so quickly, and he thinks due to the number of Republican candidates running, there were a lot of votes being split.
As for November, Graham says he thinks the race for President Obama's old U.S. Senate seat will end up garnering national attention, thinking if the GOP gets it, it will be a sort of referendum on the Obama administration. |
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| 02 09 10 by Newsroom |
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