Party leaders in Peoria and Tazewell counties see a mix of bright spots and reasons for concern in the wake of Tuesday’s general election.
Tazewell County Republican Party chair Jim Rule described his mood as “fantastic” on Wednesday following former President Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in his bid to return to the White House.
“Obviously, nationally, we were very successful,” said Rule, who was particularly impressed by how his party closed the gap with Democrats in Illinois, noting President-elect Trump improved by more than 4% from 2020.
“We’re encouraged by that. We'll keep chipping away as time goes on, and the goal of turning Illinois red by 2030, which is a very realistic goal. It's going to take some work, but I think we're well on our way to doing that as well.”
In Peoria County, Democratic Party chair Rick Fox expressed disappointment with the presidential outcome – despite a solid showing by the party locally with the re-election of State’s Attorney Jodi Hoos and county board wins by incumbent Eden Blair and challenger Marcia McCann.
“Our local efforts, we’re very happy with how things turned out. We had lots of volunteer engagement after Harris got into the race; lots of people jumped in and helped up and down the ballot here locally, and we're pretty happy with our results, especially with the pickup on the county board,” said Fox.
“Certainly we were not, here in Illinois, able to swing what happened nationally and we're, of course, upset. I've been talking with a lot of people that are maybe pretty anxious at this point of where we're going back to, but we'll see how it unfolds and hope for the best.”
Fox also pointed to the notable wins by U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen in the Illinois 17th District, State Sen. Dave Koehler, and State Rep. Sharon Chung, while maintaining optimism for John Spears in his judicial race against Frank Ierulli that remains too close to call.
But he added he’s “still processing” Trump’s victory.
“We knew it was close, but I think some of us had to maybe deluded ourselves into the fact that we would be able to pull this out and we wouldn't end up where we're at now,” he said. “So yeah, I have been struggling to figure out how we got here. But we will make it through.”
Rule said he was pleased to see Tazewell County remain a GOP stronghold, delivering returns of 60% or higher for Joe McGraw, Sally Owens, and Desi Anderson in their respective losses to Sorensen, Koehler, and Chung.
“The problem is the maps. I mean, the Democrats have been very successful in engineering the maps in their favor,” said Rule. “We were unable to get past a lot of the ways the demographics are set up in those maps. So we're going to have to keep chipping away and keep working hard to win hearts and minds.”
Rule said he wasn’t exactly sure what to make of seeing 54% of Tazewell County voters supporting the progressive idea of increasing taxes on millionaires to provide property tax relief.
“I think a lot of that had to do with the way those initiatives were worded,” he said. “We were encouraging everybody to vote ‘no’ on these things. But I think it was something where the general voter wasn't really educated enough to know what those initiatives were going to do. It's still unclear to a lot of people, including myself, so we'll see.”
