THE ILLINOIZE: COVID-19 spike leading to more regional mitigations...Kilbride defends his record on unions & Madigan...Our new top rated legislative seat likely to change parties...Real fake news...

October 20, 2020

14 DAYS TO GO

If there’s an analogy for two weeks to Election Day, it may be that moment in the Kentucky Derby when the overexcited announcer screams “AND DOWN THE STRETCH THEY COME!”

There are still things that can change between now and Election Day, but the wire is in sight. If something happens in the last furlong (the last week), it is usually put in place by something that happened earlier in the race. So this may really be the last stretch to make something happen.

Good luck to all of the candidates and campaign workers out there. Politics makes us all cynical sometimes, but there are a lot of young and old people out there working their tails off during a pandemic trying to make Illinois better.

COVID-19 “NEW WAVE”

There is no longer a region of the state (there are 11 in the Governor’s “Restore Illinois” plan) with a COVID-19 positivity rate under 6%. The City of Chicago is the lowest “region” in the state with a 6.2% positivity rate on a 7-day rolling average.

Yesterday, Governor JB Pritzker was in Jackson County, home of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, to announce he was implementing mitigations in 11 Southern Illinois counties closing bars and restaurants to indoor dining, reducing acceptable crowd sizes, and closing casinos early every night.

The positivity rate in the region has jumped to over 9%.

You-know-what may really hit the fan this week though, as we expect Pritzker will put similar mitigations in place for DuPage, Kane, Will, and Kankakee counties. That’s almost 2.3 million people, all of whom reside in the Chicago TV market. Closing indoor dining and bar service and closing casinos early in Joliet, Aurora, and Elgin will likely cause uproar among business owners and the gigantic number of people who aren’t paying attention to positivity rates in southern Illinois or out in Galena.

Pritzker and IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike were in Murphysboro yesterday to announce the mitigations in southern Illinois. He’s also going back to daily COVID-19 briefings, which he ended in June. He’s scheduled to brief at the Thompson Center at 2:30.

KILBRIDE DEFENDS RECORD

Supreme Court Justice Tom Kilbride’s retention race has popped up from seemingly out of nowhere this fall. Most media is focused on the horse race, and believe me, it’s interesting. Kilbride has raised $2.2 million, mostly from unions and trial lawyers, his opponents have matched that thanks to a gigantic check from billionaire Ken Griffin.

But what is Kilbride’s record on the court? He’ll argue he’s a centrist judge who follows the law down to the letter, and opponents will tell you he’s bought and paid for by unions and Speaker Michael Madigan.

Kilbride spoke to our Rebecca Anzel, and she has a really good rundown on the things Kilbride has done, said, and ruled on in 20 years on the high court.

Here’s Rebecca’s story on Kilbride.

SKILLICORN MOVES TO MOST ENDANGERED

Here’s a new opinion piece we posted late last night. You may remember in early September, we listed the Top 10 Legislative Seats Likely to Flip in November. Now that third quarter fundraising reports are in, we have an idea of how much candidates are (or aren’t) raising and are (or aren’t) spending, we’ve updated our list.

Our new member in the top spot is Rep. Allen Skillicorn (R-East Dundee), who hasn’t raised much money and is getting trucked over in spending by Democrat Suzanne Ness. Here’s the list with their previous ranking. You’ll have to read the whole thing to get our reasons why.

1. Allen Skillicorn (R-East Dundee) (Previous: 2)

2. Rep. Amy Grant (R-Wheaton) (Not Rated)

3. Senate District 25 (OPEN) (6)

4. Rep. Grant Wehrli (R-Naperville) (7)

5. Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) (NR)

6. Rep. Brad Stephens (R-Rosemont) (1)

7. Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) (4)

8. Rep. Nathan Reitz (D-Steelville) (3)

9. Rep. Tom Morrison (R-Palatine) (NR)

10. Rep. Anne Stava-Murray (D-Naperville) (5)

Same as before, let us know what you think. Yell at me, chastise me, make fun of me, tell me I’m brilliant at patrick@theillinoize.com.

FAKE NEWS

I still intend to write something about this story at some point this week, but I want to make sure you all read the story as soon as possible. Illinois is the center of a network of fake newspapers spreading specifically partisan content.

A clip…

“Around 2015, [Timpone] teamed up with Proft and started a chain of websites and free newspapers focused on suburban and rural areas of Illinois.

The publications looked like typical news outlets that covered their communities. But a political action committee controlled by Proft paid Timpone’s companies at least $646,000 from 2016 to 2018, according to state campaign finance records, money that largely came from Dick Uihlein, a conservative megadonor and the head of the shipping supply giant Uline.

After complaints, the Illinois Board of Elections ordered the newspapers to say Proft’s committee funded them. A small disclaimer in their “About” pages now says the sites are funded, “in part, by advocacy groups who share our beliefs in limited government.” The Illinois sites are virtually the only ones in Timpone’s network with such a disclosure.

The regulators’ questions didn’t slow Timpone down. He doubled the size of the Illinois network to 34 sites and by 2017 was expanding to other states.”

It appears someone has ordered a hit on Supreme Court Justice Tom Kilbride, too. In “stories” like

this

and this

and this

and this

and this

and this

and this

and this.

You get the picture.

LET’S TALK

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Have a great day.