How Are Candidates Really Feeling Today?
U.S. Senator-elect Tammy Duckworth celebrates her victory in 2016. Candidates are often left with hours of reflection, nerves, and even last minute campaigning on Election Day.
You’ve seen the canned tropes from candidates on Election Day. They’re “cautiously optimistic,” or “not taking anything for granted,” or “running through the tape.” But how do candidates really feel today? Months of hard work, fundraising, shoe leather, sanity, and spousal good will have all gone by the wayside just waiting for polls to close at 7:00 P.M.
We didn’t want to put any candidates on the ballot today in a tough position, so we reached out to multiple former Republican and Democrat lawmakers for some of their memories.
“My first race was for State Representative [in 2006],” says former State Representative Franco Coladipietro, now the Mayor of Bloomingdale in DuPage County. “I was running against the incumbent in the primary [Roger Janesch] and needless to say it was a spirited affair.”
Many, like Coladipietro, say nerves were also a big part of the feelings on Election Day.
“I had a wide range feelings-relieved that the campaign was over and coming to a final vote, had a knot in my stomach so big I couldn’t have coffee in the morning and was exhilarated at the prospect of actually pulling it off and winning,” he said.
Former Senate Republican Leader and 2006 Republican candidate for State Treasurer Christine Radogno says some races were more personal than others, like a 2002 primary against fellow Senator Bill Mahar.
“In close races, for me, my first local race in 1989, the 1997 primary and general, and 2002 race after redistricting when I had to run against a colleague [Mahar], I was literally nauseous and desperately trying to convince myself it would be okay either way,” Radogno said.
Former State Representative and House GOP Leader Tom Cross, who narrowly lost a race for State Treasurer in 2014, says he took his nerves out on staff.
[I was] nervous. On edge. Asking myself ‘what else could or should I have done,’” said Cross. “It’s a very long day. You’re making phone calls. In the [State Representative] race, I was stopping by polling places. I was usually driving staff crazy, bugging them for information.”
Former State Representative Adam Brown, who won his first legislative race in 2010 when he was just 25, said the process was draining for he and his family and by the time Election Day arrived, he was glad it was almost over.
“The first race [in 2010, against Democrat Bob Flider] was a nightmare by the end. You're so raw from emotion and sorry for putting your family into the spin cycle with dirty laundry that you may or may not have created,” Brown said. “It's there tarnishing your reputation and theirs. Winning or losing by that final day has tumbled from top-of-mind.”
Brown said by the time polls opened, it was his first chance to reflect.
“Election Day always gave me that day of solace, of peace, of serenity,” he says. “We put in our fight, and little of what I did Election Day would have a bearing on the outcome. “The mailers, the commercials, and the critiques from detractors and supporters, would wane if only for a bit. In that twelfth hour there was finally no more time for an eleventh-hour surprise.”
Others, like former State Representative and State Senator Ron Sandack say they were feeling the exhaustion of long days when Election Day rolled around.
“I always felt a combination of excited and exhausted,” he said. “Excited to be almost done and thrilled to conclude all of the craziness associated with elections. Having been no stranger to tough races, I had a tight race for Mayor of Downers Grove against an entrenched incumbent and faced two challenging primaries for House nominations, I really did not worry about the outcomes.”
Sandack says by the time Election Day rolled around, he knew the outcome was out of his hands.
“I felt I had tried my best to connect with voters and constituents and worked hard to earn their vote. Thus the exhaustion by Election Day,” he said. “Because I never was certain of any outcome, I became a bit insulated from worrying about winning or losing. I just worked hard and to the very end and looked forward to being done with campaigning, which I never liked doing.”
Former State Senator and Congresswoman Debbie Halvorson called Election Day “another work day.”
“I approached them pretty much the same,” she said. “I got up so early and got up with every staff every year and said, ‘OK, let’s go, we have work to do.’ Whatever was still left to do, I helped do it because this is the last day you have to get out the vote.”
Halvorson said there as no task she wouldn’t take on in the closing hours of an election.
“I would still either knock on doors at the places my staff identified as those who had not voted or I made the calls myself,” she said. “It wasn’t until the polls closed that I started feeling I had done everything I could. In fact, I can remember most times using the headlights of my husband’s car to see my notes as to where I was going next. Then I went home to think. I had done all I could do. It was up to the voters and I would be fine with whatever happened.”
Many former lawmakers we spoke to say, despite the stereotypes, they do feel emotions and nerves on Election Day. Many of them say they give credit to candidates putting their reputations on the line in 2020, especially during such a polarized, complicated election year.