Dr. Klumpp looks at the data: What were the major influences on the 2024 Cook County judicial retention vote?

FWIW is once again pleased to present a Guest Post by Albert J. Klumpp, a PhD in public policy analysis with a national reputation for expertise on judicial races. His article, "California's Judicial Retention Elections: Past, Present, and Future," appeared in the December 2024 issue of the Orange County Lawyer Magazine. Dr. Klumpp has been a generous contributor to FWIW for many years.

by Albert J. Klumpp

This past November 20, I provided FWIW with a preliminary analysis of Cook County’s November 5 judicial retention voting, based on preliminary vote totals and available information. Now that final, official vote totals are available, and using better information in certain categories, I’ve completed a full analysis including ward- and township-level results. As promised, here are some of the details.

■ Voter Participation: Roughly 68% of Cook County voters completed the retention ballot. The figure is higher than long-term historical numbers but is the lowest since 2016—indicating that the surge of voter interest in judicial retention that happened in 2018 is fading somewhat, as it typically has done in similar situations in retention jurisdictions. The highest and lowest participation rates:

■ Voter Approval: The baseline approval rate countywide, controlling for all other factors, was 74.8%. This is a typical value based on recent history. Locations with the highest and lowest baselines:

■ Name Cues: The final figures for name-based voting are virtually identical to the preliminary ones: 1.7% for female; 1.0% for Irish; 1.4% for Black. For Hispanic names the analysis produced a figure of 0.4% but it was not statistically significant. All of the Hispanic-majority locations did favor Hispanic names, but the historical pattern countywide is that heavily ethnic names of whatever origin tend to lag very slightly behind other names. Those two factors tend to offset, as they did here. The highest name-based votes for each category:

Notably, nearly all of the highest pro-female numbers came from Hispanic-majority locations. I had not noticed such a thing before and will have to check past results to see if it is a regular occurrence.

■ Bar Associations: The ratings of local bar associations together influenced 18.2% of the vote. Considering that the figure two years ago was 15.0%, and that for the second consecutive election major newspapers did not report bar ratings, this result was unexpectedly high. The analysis also confirms that ratings from the smaller bars were more influential than ever before, providing nearly half of that 18.2% figure. As I explained in my most recent post, the most prominent sources of bar ratings found in mobile-device searches did not limit themselves to the major bars but rather offered voluminous presentations covering all of the bars. The heaviest users of bar ratings:

■ Social Media Sources: The Girl, I Guess voter guide is continuing to grow in influence. Six years ago when it debuted, it captured 3.4% of the retention vote. Four years ago the figure increased to 4.2%, and two years ago it increased again to 5.3%. Last month the figure increased for a third straight time, to 6.1%. The guide was statistically detectable in 41 wards and 26 townships.

The Chicago Votes! young voters guide, which in 2022 incorporated the original “Cheat Sheet” guide first seen in 2020, this time simply recommended a No vote for every judge who was flagged by Injustice Watch for a negative rating or controversy. Usage of the guide, and also of the Injustice Watch information for anyone who employed the same decision strategy, was 2.7%.

The largest figures for each source:

And two final tables showing the combined information use from all sources:

As FWIW readers know, there are other sources of ratings on retention judges besides these. But typically their impact is too small to detect statistically and so I do not attempt to do so. One limited exception is the Fraternal Order of Police ratings. Countywide the FOP ratings were not detectable, but they did have influence in the 11th, 13th, 38th, 41st and 45th Wards. The 41st produced the highest number, 4.3%.

As usual, these figures are statistical estimates with margins of error, but everything cited above (without qualification) is considered highly statistically significant.

I’ll have one final post about this election cycle, to examine campaign spending for judicial vacancies. That one has to wait for the final quarterly reports to be filed by candidates who were in several partisan contests.