Erica Orr leads Judge Litricia Payne in the race for the Hambright Jr. vacancy in the 1st Subcircuit. Orr leads by 1,309 votes in the City, and by 635 votes in Suburban returns.
Tiana Ellis Blakely is comfortably ahead of Judge Fredrick H. Bates in the race for the Lampkin vacancy in the 2nd Subcircuit, leading by 4,155 votes in Suburban returns, and by 5,074 votes in the City.
With just about 74% of the votes counted, Judge Travis Richardson is running 2,483 votes behind Ieshia Gray in the City of Chicago in the race for the Turner Jr. vacancy in the 2nd Subcircuit; with over 80% of the suburban votes counted, Gray leads Richardson there by 474 votes.
Arthur Wesley Willis is ahead of former Judge Devlin Schoop by 1,781 votes in City returns and by 2,219 votes in the suburbs in the race for the Valarie Turner vacancy in the 2nd Subcircuit.
On the other hand, Judges Adrienne E. Davis, Toya T. Harvey, and Debra A. Seaton all appear to be significantly ahead in their bids to hold the seats to which they were appointed (the 2nd Subcircuit Laws, Rhodes, and Willis vacancies).
Harvey’s race is fairly close in the City, with Harvey enjoying only about a thousand vote margin over Tiesha L. Smith, but the margin is closer to 5,000 votes in the suburbs.
3 days ago
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The result in the 1st is a big surprise. Payne locked up nearly every significant possible endorsement in the entire subcircuit, had the first ballot position, and got the Tribune's endorsement. (Bar ratings were pretty even.) Hope you have a reader in the 1st who can shed some light on this one.
Some subcircuits are entirely resistant to ratings and (especially) Trib endorsements. And before drawing any demographic conclusions on that comment, we have seen comparable results in several north side subcircuits (the Trib endorsement was 1 for 3 in the 8th this year, and often irrelevant in the 9th) and the 2014 general election of Judge Pieczonka.
I'm very confused with the results of the Lampkin vacancy. Anyone have insight?
yes, she won he lost
clearly endorsements mean nothing
Definitely true that the bars and Trib may not have had very much pull for Payne. But losing...she even out-fundraised and outspent Orr (based on incomplete filings). The usual suspects just don't explain this one.
The Lampkin result in the 2nd looks to be gender-driven. There was a strong pro-female vote this time countywide. Same thing happened in the Laws and Turner, Jr. vacancies.
Not hard to understand at all. Clearly Albert and anyone else who is confused has never met some of these candidates. Please give Erica Orr and Tiana Blakely and Art Willis just a little credit. I met all three of them and their opponents and I can tell that the right three won. I give bar association ratings consideration when i do not have personal experience or gut instinct to rely on. Did you ever just like someone when you first met them? Did you ever get turned-off when you first met someone? Maybe, just maybe, the candidates themselves had something to do with the results. Congratulations to the three winners.
With over a 11,500 lead in the Lampkin vacancy you think that was gender driven, I think not
I met all of the candidates in the second subcircuit races this cycle. Sometimes they were cool, sometimes they were not cool. None of them were exceptionally good or bad; just human beings subjected to stressful situations and expected to perform the impossible task of pleasing all of the people all of the time. No, not all of the best people won in their respective races but this is an imperfect process where arm chair critics get to opine in anonymous blog posts. Kudos to all of you who were brave enough to run and put up with the antics of voters and your opponents (and in one particular case, the antics of your opponent's friends).
"Not all of the best people won?" I suspect you are referring to yourself. I'm not convinced that anyone who follows this blog, other than a candidate can say they met and interacted with all 13 candidates in that subcircuit.
Considering that nearly all of the candidates in the second subcircuit had been campaigning for almost a year, it would be surprising if you didn't meet all of them assuming you follow judicial campaigns (as most of this blog's readers do).
Anon 4:57 - Didn't mean to suggest that it was only about gender; sorry for giving a lazy answer. With a margin that size there would be other factors as well. But it was the single most important factor throughout the county this time (looks to be around 18 percentage points generally), and it pretty clearly was influential in the 2nd where women went 4-0 against men and three of the four were routs.
Anon 4:22 - Not only do I not deny Ms. Orr credit, I give her full credit for one of the most remarkable wins of the entire primary. Certainly the personal impressions you describe would help, if others had the same impressions from personal meetings. I wonder if there's more to the story, though, since 44,000 people cast votes. Possibly other endorsements in the community that were never reported online?
It’s not rocket science, Erika Orr and her campaign team out worked Litricia Payne. Her team knocked doors, dropped literature, phone banked, had robocalls, went to more churches than you can image, worked the parking lots at grocery stores and her social media campaign was intense. You can have all the endorsements you want, but nothing beats getting in front of the voters and being liked when you do it. Further, there were only women in this race and they both were African-American, so race and gender were not factors. Hard work is the answer, nothing more.
I decided to take a look at the Lampkin and J.Turner races. With respect to the Lampkin vacancy, Ellis-Blakely won every city ward and township by a landslide. I'm not convinced that gender was the only factor. Bates had every single endorsement available. I didn't follow their campaign but those numbers are impressive. On another note, I did check her bar ratings, while she was not the sitting Judge, she received favorable ratings from all of the bar associations. The voters did not agree with the Supremes this time, but at least a qualified person was voted in. So I looked to the J.Turner vacancy since it is
in the same subcircuit to see if gender was indeed the reason that two sitting judges were defeated. The numbers are not comparable. The same exact voters did not produce the same results in a different race where there was a male running against a female. Again, Gray had favorable bar ratings across the board. We must accept the fact that sometimes the Supremes choice may not be the same as the voters.
The J. TURNER race was much closer than the Lampkin race by far. Ergo, it does indeed lend itself to the analysis of the gender factor. Plus, the fact that Blakely was the strongest candidate in the field and basically carried her running mates on her back cannot be ignored. Also, if Bates was on every palm card and received every endorsement, that means that somebody wasn’t being up front with him regarding their support. And that’s Chicago politics.
Ubi O'Neal would have won had the State Board of Elections not jerked him around
If Ms. Blakely carried her running mates on her backs, then they all would have won. However, that is not the case. It is very easy to opine about races without having first hand knowledge of these races. These candidates in whole did a great job of "putting in the work." Ieshia Gray knocked on doors, visited the churches, community meetings and events, conducted robo calls, door drops, billboards and had a great social media following. Her opponent did a great job of working and manning early voting and election day. If you were there, which most of you weren't, then you would know that Richardson listened to his consultants and changed his entire stomping speech adding humility and humor, which he lacked in his first campaign run. At the end of the day, some won and some lost but to be clear, none of them won without putting in hard work.
Months ago no one, outside of her family and friends, would have ever said Tiana Blakely was the strongest in her field. Those of you who sat on the side lines are now confused as to how she won. Or how Ieshia Gray won for that matter. Perhaps they both did something unheard of in these races, they actually took the time and WORKED. What these two candidates showed is that you can attend every political engagement in the world and have every endorsement under the sun and still end up short. They aren't the first to do it. They will not be the last. Those of you who want to run against the "party" should take note of what they did. Get your team together (and no that doesn't mean some high priced consultant and maybe it just means your family), work your butt off (yes, you will actually have to work to meet voters), save your money (because contrary to what anybody tells you, you will need it for mailers, flyers, signs, events, etc.), develop your social media presence, and last but not least, say a prayer, because you will need it. Now with that being said congrats to the winners. To those who came up short, God is not done with you yet. Blessings.
Well you could say that Bates carried his running mates on his back. However, no one will because he lost. So instead of pointing out the obvious, that two political novices rode the wave for as long as it would take them, we congratulate the winners. They made smart decisions to use Bates for his political connects, and then with calculated timing, distanced themselves as far as possible. This is Chicago politics after all and it looks like they learned quickly. Congrats.
Ieshia Gray ran her race. She worked hard and kept to her race. She beat her opponent by over 4100 votes. Give credit where credit is due. She won. He lost.
Blakey CARRIED those other women. Period. She was Jordan and the rest were bench warmers who benefitted from her strength. Anything else is living in a state of denial.
At the end of the day, whether Tiana Blakely was Jordan and Ieshia Gray was Scottie Pippen, they will both wear the robe. PERIOD.
Ibid
First, your numbers are inaccurate. Second, a more discerning eye would note the close percentages between the candidates, which tells a more in depth story of the election. And third, this was the tightest election between a man and a woman who went head to head, wasn't it?
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