What presidential campaign? The Electoral College puts most American
voters on the sidelines
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[October 09, 2024]
By CHRISTINE FERNANDO
WAUKEGAN, Ill. (AP) — On a table at the office of the Waukegan Township
Democrats sits a box of postcards with Wisconsin addresses that were
collected during a postcard-writing pizza party to help turn out voters
there. Leaning against the table are homemade Harris-Walz signs.
“We know they’re handing these out everywhere in Wisconsin,” said Matt
Muchowski, chair of the Democratic club. “Here in Waukegan, it’s been
harder to get a hold of Harris yard signs, so we’re printing out our
own.”
One reason they've been in short supply: Waukegan is in Illinois, which
is not a presidential swing state. It just sits across the border from
one.
Muchowski said this is emblematic of the limited attention cities
outside of swing states receive from presidential campaigns. The United
States' unique Electoral College system, which replaces the popular
vote, puts disproportionate voting power in the hands of a relative few
states that are evenly divided politically and ensures that the majority
of campaign dollars — and attention from the presidential candidates —
goes to those states.
The lack of attention leaves voters in much of the country feeling as if
they and the issues they care about have been sidelined. It's a dividing
line that is felt acutely in places such as Waukegan, one of Chicago’s
farthest-flung suburbs.
The last time a presidential candidate set foot in the working class,
majority Latino city was when former President Donald Trump landed at
its airport in 2020. Trump walked off Air Force One, gave a single wave,
and then immediately climbed into an SUV headed across the border to
Kenosha, Wisconsin.
‘Lost in the national conversation’
In Racine, a Wisconsin city of a similar size just 50 miles north of
Waukegan, Trump hosted a rally in June near a harbor overlooking Lake
Michigan, where he gushed about the development along the lakeshore,
spoke about revitalization efforts in Racine and the Milwaukee
metropolitan area, and emphasized their voters’ importance in his
attempt to return to the White House.
Just a month earlier, before he dropped out of the race, President Joe
Biden lauded a new Microsoft center in Racine County during a campaign
stop in the city. The city just south of Milwaukee has become a common
stomping ground for presidential hopefuls as Wisconsin, one of just
seven battleground states likely to determine this year’s presidential
race, remains heavily targeted by the campaigns of Trump and Vice
President Kamala Harris.
Cities such as Waukegan become “lost in the national conversation”
during presidential elections, said Muchowski, who has lived in the area
most of his life.
“It’s not so much the candidates as it is the anti-democratic Electoral
College,” he said. “... It’s frustrating that certain voters’ votes
count for more, and they discount and discredit the votes of more urban,
more people of color voters.”
Campaigns visits to neighboring Wisconsin: 27
Illinois is a reliably Democratic state — it hasn't voted for a
Republican presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988. That
predictability is reflected in the presidential campaigns every four
years.
Except for fundraisers, the Republican and Democratic presidential
tickets have been to Illinois just twice this year — once for an
appearance by Trump before a group representing Black journalists and
once by Harris when she came to Chicago for her party’s national
convention. By comparison, they had visited Wisconsin 27 times through
Tuesday, including when Biden was the presumptive nominee.
This year's presidential battleground states — Arizona, Georgia,
Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — represent
18% of the country's population but have dominated the attention of the
Democratic and Republican presidential candidates and their running
mates.
Through Tuesday, they have had just over 200 total campaign stops —
three-quarters of which have been to those seven states, according to a
database of campaign events that is based on Associated Press reporting.
Pennsylvania alone has been visited 41 times, the most of any state.
But it's not just the state visits: The presidential campaigns are
tailoring their appearances to specific counties they believe are
crucial to their success. The AP's database shows their campaign events
in the seven battleground states have been concentrated in counties with
22.7 million registered voters — just 10% of all voters registered
nationally for this year's presidential election.
Electoral College, a system of 'neglect’
Many residents of Waukegan wish it also could get on the candidates'
radar. They said they're proud of how multiculturalism has shaped their
city, a place where almost 60% of residents are Latino and more than 16%
are Black, according to 2020 U.S. Census data.
The working class community was largely built on factory jobs that once
offered residents a comfortable, middle class life. But after companies
abandoned the city’s lakefront, starting in the 1960s, tens of thousands
of jobs disappeared.
Waukegan never fully recovered.
Its poverty and unemployment rates rise well above the state and
national averages. Its school district is one of the worst-funded in the
county, struggles with understaffing and has dismal graduation rates.
And its lakeshore is a sagging reminder of the city's heyday: An
asbestos manufacturing plant, a coal plant and a gypsum factory all sit
silent beside public beaches. Beside them are a crisscrossed network of
abandoned railroad tracks.
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A Welcome to Waukegan City sign is seen in Waukegan, Ill.,
Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
The industries brought with them another problem — a legacy of
environmental damage. The city of around 86,000 residents has five
federal Superfund sites. In 2019, the state’s pollution control
board ruled that Waukegan’s coal plant violated environmental
regulations and contaminated groundwater, and it was shuttered three
years later.
The scene in Waukegan contrasts with Racine’s pristine lakefront
marina, where luxury condos flank coffee shops, restaurants and
hotels.
Thomas Maillard, the Democratic State Central Committeeman for
Illinois' 10th Congressional District and a lifelong Lake County
resident, said the contrast between the two cities is clear. In
Waukegan, he said he worries about gun violence and access to
well-paying jobs, affordable housing, child care and health care.
“The history of Waukegan, unfortunately, is the history of this
country’s neglect of those Rust Belt communities, especially along
the Great Lakes,” he said. “... People are struggling.”
Maillard pointed to the Electoral College system as a culprit,
calling it “a system of potential neglect.”
‘You need to hear us’
Sam Cunningham, a former mayor of Waukegan, said people feel
forgotten in the city that he’s called home since elementary school.
It’s clear, he said, that the national agenda prioritizes some
states over others.
“They’re probably thinking, ‘Why should we put money over here when
we need it in these battleground states?’” he said. “I understand
the logic, but understand how we feel. Do we feel slighted? Of
course we do. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”
Margaret Padilla Carrasco, who has lived in the Waukegan area her
entire life, drove to Milwaukee in August to see Harris speak. If
Harris were to visit Waukegan, Carrasco said she would take her to
the deteriorating houses on the south side of the city, to assisted
living facilities where senior citizens are struggling to pay their
bills and to a homeless shelter near her home.
Her message to Harris, she said, is to not count on their votes.
Saddled with job losses and a rising cost of living, people in
Waukegan are frustrated, she said. While she still plans to vote for
Harris, Carrasco hears of more and more Waukegan voters pulling away
from the Democratic Party, which has long won the lion’s share of
the city’s votes.
“If you don’t spend the time with us, then don’t expect us to vote
for you,” said Carrasco, 65, who trains young Latinas in Waukegan to
ride horses in traditional Mexican Charro style. “You need to hear
us. You need to talk to us."
James Richard Wynn, a 35-year-old father of nine, said he feels
doubly forgotten in Waukegan as a conservative in the predominantly
Democratic city. He said he and the issues he cares most about —
homeschooling, abortion restrictions, Second Amendment rights and
government spending — often go ignored by presidential candidates.
“There is probably a mindset amongst a lot of conservatives,
especially in Illinois, who think there’s no point in saying
anything,” he said.
'A city of grit and imagination'
Despite limited political attention, several residents praised what
they described as Waukegan's do-it-yourself spirit, which often
translates into grassroots political organizing around issues such
as housing and environmental justice.
On a sunny Tuesday recently, Pastor Julie Contreras, who helps
support recent immigrants in the city, had a long to-do list. She
was gathering community members to rebuild the roof for an
undocumented couple whose house was damaged in a storm. Then she had
to collect diaper donations for a woman who had just given birth.
This is the Waukegan most people don’t see, said Contreras, an
advocate with the local nonprofit United Giving Hope. She chastised
candidates for just dropping in to the city's airport before they
head to Wisconsin without engaging with the voters there about their
struggles.
“They’re missing out on a wonderful community right here,” she said.
Muchowski, of the Waukegan Township Democrats, said when the city
feels ignored, its residents take care of each other. It's something
they've gotten used to, he said.
“Waukegan, for a lot of people, is a city of grit and imagination,”
Muchowski said. “I don’t know a lot of people who are like, ‘I want
to move across the country to Waukegan.’ But the people that come
here really see the potential.”
If only, he said, candidates would see the potential, too.
___
Associated Press multimedia journalist Kevin S. Vineys in Washington
contributed to this report.
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