Though it’s still more than five months before Illinois takes its turn on the presidential nominating calendar, it’s only a few days before the process of weeding out the pretenders from the contenders officially begins here.
On Thursday, presidential campaigns can start gathering signatures to secure a place on the ballot for their candidate, and more important, for their delegates to the Republican and Democratic nominating conventions.
The efforts in Illinois represent a test of early organizational strength and the national reach of campaigns that now are largely focused on the first few states with primaries and caucuses in early February.
On the crowded Republican side, supporters of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich have been the most active in recruiting delegate candidates. But among the current front-runners — businessman and reality TV star Donald Trump, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former business executive Carly Fiorina — there’s been little activity.
Among Democrats, Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to have no trouble putting together a campaign in her birth state. But the status of her rivals in Illinois, including Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, remains uncertain.
On its face, Illinois’ access rules don’t appear too onerous to keep campaigns that haven’t shown much organization here off the ballot, such as Trump, or a potential late-starting Democratic Vice President Joseph Biden.
But, warns Illinois House Republican leader Jim Durkin, “It’s much more daunting than it appears.”
“It’s not easy. You can be the most popular person in national polling and it doesn’t mean a damn thing. It’s all about organization,” the veteran lawmaker from Western Springs said.
Durkin, who spearheaded the 2000 and 2008 Illinois presidential campaigns of John McCain, said the first time around he didn’t finalize the paperwork to put the Arizona senator and his delegates on the Illinois ballot until five minutes before the filing deadline.
But Durkin also knows that committing too early to a candidate can have its pitfalls. An early supporter of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s now-ended Republican presidential bid, Durkin said he will focus on state legislative contests and not immediately back another candidate for the White House.
The real work for presidential campaigns is putting together slates of pledged delegates for the national nominating conventions for the March 15 Illinois primary ballot — 54 who are directly elected by GOP voters to go to Cleveland and 102 voted by Democratic primary-goers to go to Philadelphia.
Under the rules of the national Republican Party, Illinois’ presidential primary marks the beginning of a stretch of primaries and caucuses where the number of convention delegates awarded won’t be based on how the candidates finish.
Instead, the real voting comes in the contest for the delegates, who are elected separately from each of the state’s 18 congressional districts. As is the tradition in Illinois’ GOP primary, the vote for a Republican presidential candidate is known as a “beauty contest” with no effect on how many delegates are awarded.
And so the campaigns are lining up supporters to gather signatures. For the presidential contenders, it takes only 3,000 valid signatures from voters to get on Illinois’ primary ballot, with a Jan. 6 deadline.
For delegates to the Republican convention, the number of signatures varies by congressional district — from a low of 145 in the West Side’s 4th Congressional District to 1,014 in central and west central Illinois’ heavily Republican 18th Congressional District.
Each GOP presidential candidate can field a maximum of three delegates and three alternate delegates per district, and they can run as a slate for petition-gathering purposes.
Former House Republican leader Tom Cross of Oswego is serving as a co-chair of the Bush campaign in Illinois, along with former Gov. Jim Edgar and U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Channahon. Cross said he, Edgar and Kinzinger also will run as delegates on a slate that includes state Sens. Bill Brady of Bloomington, Karen McConnaughay of St. Charles and Sue Rezin of Morris.
“We have, for all practical purposes, filled out our slate of delegates,” Cross said. “I’ve been involved in calling people both to serve as delegates and in supporting us. We will be good to go when we start circulating petitions.”
Cross noted that recruiting delegates isn’t just a matter of putting a name on the ballot but finding experienced and well-known people who can serve to verify the quality of the presidential contender.
“In Springfield, (veteran state Rep.) Raymond Poe is an example,” said Cross, who added that the campaign plans to roll out its full list of delegates soon. “The challenge for all campaigns is to have those types of people statewide in every congressional district.”
Nancy Kimme, a former chief of staff for the late Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, is acting as senior adviser to the Kasich campaign in Illinois. She said the Ohio governor signed his statement of candidacy, a precursor to get on the ballot, during his first fundraising visit to Chicago last week.
“We’re going to be ready on day one with our delegates. We’re almost full now and we’re running them through the vetting process,” Kimme said.
“You’ve got to start the process now. You have to identify folks. And you have to have a commitment from the campaign to produce the resources as needed,” Kimme said. She said the campaign plans to roll out its delegate slate when petitions are circulated next week.
Republican state Sen. Michael Connelly of Lisle is heading up the Rubio effort in Illinois and said he is well on his way to building out the Florida senator’s delegate slate.
“It’s a lot of work. You don’t appreciate the madness of the gerrymandered Illinois congressional districts until you’re engaged in this process,” Connelly said of the Democrat-drawn congressional district maps.
Among the Rubio recruits are state Sens. Dan Duffy of Lake Barrington, Jim Oberweis of Sugar Grove, Dale Righter of Charleston and Jason Barickman of Champaign and state Reps. Mike Fortner of West Chicago, Tom Morrison of Palatine, Mark Batinick and John Anthony of Plainfield and Barbara Wheeler of Crystal Lake. Other Rubio recruits include former state Rep. Jil Tracy of Quincy, former U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling of Colona and former state Rep. Al Salvi of Mundelein.
The importance of early organizing and fielding a full slate of delegates was evident in the state’s Republican primary in 2012, when former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum sought to upend the momentum building for the GOP’s eventual nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Romney, with more money, better organization and well-known delegate candidates, won 42 of the 54 elected delegates at stake in Illinois, though he defeated Santorum by only a 12-percentage-point margin.
Santorum won only a dozen elected delegates after failing to file any delegates in four of the state’s congressional districts — including districts that were favorable to his social conservatism.
Democrats in Illinois use a hybrid system that’s more complicated.
Presidential candidates are awarded a proportional share of delegates based on how well each White House contender does in each congressional district. But a candidate doesn’t get any delegates unless he or she gets at least 15 percent of the vote. If a candidate is entitled to delegates but didn’t field any in a congressional district, they will be appointed at a meeting of party officials in May.
The number of delegates elected from each congressional district in the primary varies from four to as many as nine based on a formula that considers Democratic votes in previous presidential and governor races. Only 500 valid petition signatures are needed for Democratic delegates, and they can run as a slate in each congressional district.
Kevin Conlon, a longtime Clinton supporter who is helping coordinate the former secretary of state’s Illinois ballot access, said the campaign is close to finishing its full slate of 102 delegate candidates.
“We’ve had close to 300 applications from people who want to be considered as delegates,” Conlon said. “We’ve done meetings in different parts of the state and sent information to county chairmen and the Cook County (Democratic) Central Committee to generate interest.”
Though Biden has not announced whether he will seek the Democratic nomination, a draft Biden committee is based in Chicago and has been encouraging supporters to join. But the draft movement is a super political action committee and cannot directly participate in official candidate activities.
As is often the case, the question remains whether there will be any presidential contest by election time in Illinois. Starting with the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1, roughly half of the GOP delegates and 38 percent of the Democratic delegates will be selected before March 15.
In addition, Illinois shares its primary date with Florida, Ohio and Missouri, and voters here could find any remaining competition for the nominations heading elsewhere.
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