Guest Post: Sean Tenner puts the 2024 primary into perspective

As part of our continuing evaluation of the recent primary, FWIW is pleased to present this guest post from Sean Tenner, the 46th Ward Democratic Party Committeeperson and the President of KNI Communications.

by Sean Tenner

I appreciate the opportunity provided by Jack to provide my view – in a historical context - on voter turnout figures in the 2024 Cook County Democratic Primary, as well as some thoughts on trends in judicial elections.

I don’t know anyone in our field who thinks that today’s general level of voter participation, or civic engagement writ large, is where it should be for a healthy democracy. It is heartbreaking that, for example, only 613,795 people in the City of Chicago chose to vote in the 2023 Brandon Johnson / Paul Vallas runoff. Chicago has approximately 2.7 million residents and approximately 1,600,000 registered voters. In my experience, nearly all of them have strong opinions about the state of the city, crime, schools, property taxes, homelessness and whomever is serving as Mayor – or running for Mayor.

And in the April 2023 Chicago municipal election – in which only 38.67% of registered voters and 22.73% of all Chicagoans voted – the choices could not have been more clear or the process more accessible. In most wards the ballot had one question on it: Brandon Johnson or Paul Vallas for Mayor; as clear a distinction and ideological choice as one can hope for. In some wards there were Aldermanic run-off elections which should have increased – rather than decreased – turnout. Voters were given the option of voting by mail, voting at any of 50 early voting locations starting over two weeks before election day, or voting in their neighborhood precinct on election day.

Yet, nearly one million Chicago registered voters chose not to vote in this most personal and impactful of elections. And on a global level, the United States falls behind so many countries around the world – including those with far fewer resources and far less developed election infrastructure – in their voter turnout. Something is deeply wrong; and trends such as reverse-partisanship (voters who vote Republican not because they like Republicans, but because they really hate Democrats – and vice-versa), gerrymandering, polarization that discourages moderate voters from participating, and the ceaseless negativity and unpleasantness of modern politics all play a role.

However, I disagreed with characterizations in the media both before, during and after election day, that the 2024 Cook County Democratic Primary turnout was somehow catastrophically low in comparison to similar elections. Would it benefit our society if it was higher? Yes, of course. Should we work to increase it? Yes, absolutely and I am glad there are groups throughout Illinois working to do so as we prepare for the 2024 General Election. But, in a true historical context, it just was not a particularly low turnout and, in some ways, exceeded expectations and projections.

First let’s dispense with the notion that the 2024 Cook County Democratic Primary is comparable to any recent election is which a competitive Presidential race was on the ballot. This is apples and oranges. For many Cook County residents, and many Americans, Presidential races are all they care about. No competitive presidential race (the case in the 2024 primary) equals no trip to the polling place. 2008, 2016 and 2020 had competitive Presidential Primaries on the Cook County Primary Ballot. Even in 2020, during the “COVID Primary” about a million people voted despite all the challenges of that awful time.

Next we must eliminate, for comparison sake, elections where there is a competitive U.S. Senate or gubernatorial primary. Candidates spend millions of dollars on these races, and the airwaves are flooded with commercials. In blue Illinois, Democratic primaries in particular dominate ad spending, news coverage and voter engagement. In 2010 we had the extremely (near-recount) close Dan Hynes vs. Pat Quinn gubernatorial primary and the relatively close David Hoffman vs. Alexi Giannoulias US Senate Primary (among other races). In 2018 we had a surge of Democratic enthusiasm in the anti-Trump blue wave year. The Democratic gubernatorial primary between now-Governor JB Prtizer, then-State Senator Dan Biss, and business leader Chris Kennedy was hotly contested with millions of dollars in ads hitting airwaves and mailboxes across the state. The open Attorney General seat also drew a large field of credible and well-financed candidates, with then State Senator Kwame Raoul emerging victorious over 2nd place finisher, former Governor Pat Quinn.

So that leaves us with three recent primary elections with no competitive Presidential, Senatorial or Gubernatorial races on the ballot: 2012, 2014 and 2022.

The recent 2024 Democratic primary had a higher number of Cook County Democratic primary voters (630,444) than any of these three. This is despite the fact that 2022 (625,622) featured a competitive and expensive statewide primary for Secretary of State, won by Alexi Giannoulias. 2024 featured no competitive statewide constitutional office primaries.

Prior to 2024, 2012 was the last Presidential Primary year without a competitive Democratic nomination contest – President Obama was running unopposed for renomination. There were, however, competitive primaries for Illinois Supreme Court and Clerk of the Circuit Court, along with a slew of Congressional and legislative primaries. Yet only 440,873 voters turned out.

2014 was the year the bottom fell out. Only 285,728 voters turned out, with a suburban turnout percentage of just 7.13% and a city turnout of 13.32%.

So, why was turnout in 2024 higher than in these other years? A few thoughts:

• Voters understanding the importance of the judiciary in the wake of years of groundbreaking court decisions on issues such as marriage equality / LGBTQ rights, voting rights, guns and abortion. In other words, voters saying to themselves “Even though I don’t get very excited by judicial races, I know how important this stuff is and I should do my research and vote. It really matters now.” A competitive Illinois Supreme Court race surely had an impact.


• Expansions of early voting and vote by mail options as well as greater public awareness of these options.


• Get out the vote operations and communications by groups that became extremely energized during the backlash to Trump’s election (for example, Indivisible) and have continued their voter education and turnout work.


• Personal PAC has always been a major force in voter mobilization – particularly in Democratic primaries – but it grew even more impactful after the Dobbs decision. Its endorsements move people to the polls.


• Groups like ONE Northside worked hard at a grassroots level to turn out voters for Bring Chicago Home.


• A crop of new leaders around the county deploying data-driven and innovative voter mobilization tactics.


• The appearance of progressive voter guides and media outlets such as Injustice Watch and Girl, I Guess which generate more awareness of downballot races and their importance. If people have no clue how to vote in downballot races, they won’t vote. If they are told that their vote truly matters in downballot races and are given easier access to information (such as bar ratings), they will.


• The ease of finding candidate bar ratings online has, I believe, made voters much more confident in voting all the way to the end of the ballot for Judges. The percentage of voters voting for Judge keeps increasing, as pointed out by Jack and Dr. Klumpp.


• Finally, the Bring Chicago Home referendum in the city, and the State’s Attorney primary countywide, began to garner more significant voter interest in the closing sprint of the campaign, as evidenced by the large number of late arriving vote by mail ballots.

Every campaign cycle is different. The great thing about politics is that there is always another election coming up. Hopefully the high stakes of the Presidential race lead to a turnout that Cook County can be truly proud of in November.