Tomorrow’s Illinois primary is the latest in the series of showdowns between former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, with 69 delegates up for grabs. The lastest poll from PPP shows Romney leading Santorum by 15 percent.
In the Fall of 2008, I was assigned to cover Illinois and Ohio for National Review. One of the things I learned very quickly while looking at races in both states was to spot commonalities. And just like Ohio was played up as a massive test for Rick Santorum, in any other year Illinois would be seen as a huge battleground.
Indeed, it has all the requisite battleground components: a large number of delegates, a diverse electorate split roughly evenly between the urban and cosmopolitan (favoring Romney) and the rural and conservative (favoring Santorum) and two U.S. Senators from different parties, one of whom was first elected in 2010.
Even better, it’s the birthplace of Ronald Reagan, which would surely get media play under normal circumstances.
But here’s the thing: In order to be a really meaningful battleground state, you have to be a state that both parties might contend in the general election, and Illinois is not in play. It is one of the few states to buck the Republican wave of 2010 at the gubernatorial level, despite early indicators that incumbent Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn would lose. It has one of the most corrupt political systems on the map, and one of its favorite native sons is the current President of the United States.
As such, while Illinois might provide a lot of delegates to one candidate or another, the victory will only be meaningful in the primary, and will have none of the potential predictive power that Ohio did.
With that said, 69 delegates is nothing to scoff at, and there are some interesting factors to consider in Illinois. The latest polls show Romney’s lead is expanding, but Santorum is still in the fight. This shouldn’t be a surprise as Santorum has demonstrated his electoral muscle in Midwestern states like Illinois. Moreover, the current polling numbers paint a picture of a rural/suburban split similar to Ohio.
Romney is polling very well in the urban areas of Illinois, especially Chicago and suburbs, but Santorum is doing better in the more conservative areas downstate. With Santorum’s wins last week in Alabama and MIssissippi, downstate Illinios would be a good target for him to hit to make up the ground in the delegate race against Romney.
However, because of his limited war chest, it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll be able to make a serious play for a state where Romney’s money will be able to dominate, especially in the extremely expensive media markets in Chicago. So, Romney is probably going to take Illinois.
Santorum does have an argument to make for why he is a better person to get Illinois’ delegates – namely, that the people who are voting for Romney in Illinois come from areas that almost certainly will go for Obama in November. (See Romney pictured above, campaigning at a Starbucks in suburban Chicago.)
In other words, if Republicans want a shot at getting any voters in this state, they’re going to have to be the people currently pulling the lever for Santorum. Those people are less likely to show up if the guy they pulled the lever for isn’t the one leading the ticket. This is the argument that Santorum could make to propel him for a real sustained push for Illinois. It would be an unusually gutsy move for him, but it’s one that could pay off on primary day.
