McHenry County voters within the new IL-11 are in only competitive U.S. House district based on estimated PVI from Cook Political Report with Amy Walter
On Monday, Cook Political Report with Amy Walter issued its initial ratings for the 2022 congressional elections for Illinois’ 17 congressional districts.
Based on Cook‘s estimated partisan voting index (PVI) of the new districts, the following ratings were assigned:
- IL-17 (open): Tossup, estimated PVI of Democrat +3
- IL-13 (open): Leans Democrat, estimated PVI of Democrat +4
- IL-14 (Underwood): Leans Democrat, estimated PVI of Democrat +4
- IL-06 (Casten & Newman): Leans Democrat, estimated PVI of Democrat +5
- IL-11 (Foster): Likely Democrat, estimated PVI of Democrat +5
All 12 other districts are rated “safe” district, based on the Democrat or Republican incumbent representing them currently or who’ve declared their reelection.
From the desk of John Lopez: Congressional districts seen as competitive will be the most likely to see outside money invested in the respective nominees by PACs and super PACs for the 2022 election cycle.
As has been discussed in other articles, metrics like PVI are too dependent on the presidential election results, which in Cook‘s PVI case for 2022 ratings, uses the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections as the benchmark.
Additionally, the longer tenured incumbent will receive an edge, including Congressman Bill Foster (D, Naperville) in IL-11, given he’s a 7-term incumbent, though his district changed dramatically from a Democrat +11 to a Democrat +5.
The new IL-06, with the same Democrat +5 PVI, has two Democratic incumbents facing each other in the Democratic primary between 2-term Congressman Sean Casten (D, Downers Grove) and freshman Congresswoman Marie Newman (D, LaGrange). Cook factors the possibility supporters of the Democrat primary loser may vote Republican in November of next year, or simply not vote in the IL-06 general race.
While additional factors enter the ratings assigned by Cook outside of PVI, these initial ratings becomes the benchmark, with a variety of other factors possibly impacting the ratings to the point of a “ratings change”, including the perception of the quality of a nominee.
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, the other major ratings service for congressional races based from the University of Virginia, has yet to issue ratings for the new Illinois congressional districts.
Without ballot security, elections are useless and become meaningless and empty charades.
Agreed Dingo!
I don’t approve of them “factoring” in that Newman vs Casten element to adjust PVI.
PVI is PVI. It’s it’s own thing. It’s not meant to be a prediction of a specific race; it’s only meant to tell you the partisan lean of a district. If you start factoring in elements of a specific candidates, what’s next? I think there should be one set of criteria that they measure among districts across the board. Whatever it is, you agree and apply it across the board to get a baseline for the *districts*. You don’t go factoring in individual circumstances of specific candidates for PVI. The point of a PVI is to tell you about the district! It’s more about the gameboard than the players. smh
For comparison, here is PVI shown on 538 for the districts you mentioned.
17 tossup Dem plus 4 (Cook Political Report Dem plus 3)
13 leans Dem Dem plus 7 (Cook Political Report Dem plus 4)
14 leans Dem Dem plus 7 (Cook Political Report Dem plus 4)
6 leans Dem Dem plus 6 (Cook Political Report Dem plus 5)
11 leans Dem Dem plus 10 (Cook Political Report Dem plus 5)
(Not sure about the leans vs likely thing since I don’t see that distinction displayed on 538, but 17 was a grey tossup district and the other ones were light blue in contrast with other districts that were dark blue.)
538 also put Raja’s district (8) in a light blue color at plus 12. Not sure what the cutoff is but Schneider’s district (10) is plus 21 and that is dark blue.
I’m not saying 538 necessarily has the best criteria. You are correct about the presidential contest skewing things. I don’t know how they weigh the stuff and that is something that could be adjusted. I just don’t like how you say Cook factored in the Casten Newman rivalry into a PVI when it shouldn’t be like that and it’s not like they have any surveys to even make a guess like that in the first place. They’re just pulling numbers out of their arse.
Both the Cook and 538 numbers confirm what I said in another post: the 11th is getting disproportionate attention from Republicans while the 6th is being ignored even though the 6th is a better prospect. They’re also ignoring the 13th and talking about 11 and 14 — when the 13th has almost identical numbers to the 14th but has the advantage of being an open seat (as opposed to the 14th or 11th where a Democrat is well established).
Voter fraud aside, Republicans have bad strategy. They’ll prop up people like Kim Klacik who is running in a district that is 75 percent Democrat and donors will waste millions on her when there are tight and winnable contests. Even in McHenry County, donors gave far more to Jeanne Ives than Jim Oberweis when Oberweis’s district was rated more competitive and Oberweis finished closer. What would have happened if Oberweis had the resources that Ives had? Maybe Underwood would be out of office. There is a lot of coping and failure among Republicans to admit that they have piss poor strategy. When you claim nothing matters and every loss is due to voter fraud instead of fumbles, you don’t have to examine yourself. Instead of looking at the Mitt Romney campaign and saying “that 47 percent comment hurt him” you can just say “voter fraud.” It’s convenient for losers who don’t want to take any personal responsibility. Election security has to be addressed but Republicans should still get in the habit of trying to run decent campaigns.
Correcting, personally, I don’t use 538 for ratings, as Cook and Sabato/UVA are my two preferred ratings.
In a recent article, I mentioned how Cook has tried to factor the results in Virginia and New Jersey last month into their estimated PVI ratings in order to adjust for the difference in the country in November 2020 opposed to November 2021.
That will explain the differences in the PVI you cited from 538 opposed to the “estimated” PVI Cook used.
As far as the “rating”, which is based in part on estimated PVI, that’s where subjectives and intangibles, like the Casten-Newman primary factoring into the IL-06 race.
As for IL-06, Orland Park Village President Keith Pakau recently announced, and he appears to have the Jeanne Ives support in that contested Republican primary with Rob Cruz and Niki Conforti, so looks like Pakau is the main Republican candidate.
Why is Joe Tirio allowed to run such a BS county clerk operation?
Ok Prince Rupert, next year, barring a successful primary challenge, you’ll get to choose between incumbent Clerk Joe Tirio and McHenry Township Assessor Mary Mahady.