April 9, 2025
RETROGRESSION AND PROGRESSION IN SKOKIE, PLUS 2024 LEFTOVERS

Democrats seem to cling to the term “progressive,” which means moving onward and forward and making improvements. Sounds good. But then some Democrats want the power to make all those decisions. Doesn’t sound so good.

The antonym is “regressive,” which means going back or returning to some point in the past. Well, if the present is crappy, then that also sounds good.

That’s called “retrogression.” It was an idea banned by the 1965 Voting Rights Act that suggested that once a minority-majority leans a certain way then it must remain that way until a 2013 law challenged that.

SKOKIE: It does not apply to the nation, states or cities but non-retrogression is always percolating somewhere, like in Skokie this year. The north suburban village was a magnet for the displaced Chicago West Side Jewish population in the 1950s who fled the influx of African-Americans. Skokie’s Jewish population topped 60 percent in the 1960s but has now dwindled to about 25 percent. But the Jewish vote, as a percent of the registered voters, still remains about half – and that is why outgoing 26-year mayor George Van Dusen and his Democratic allies thought they could hand off his job to David “Azi” Lifsics this year. They miscalculated. And so did I. I called it for Lifsics in a previous column.

The new mayor is Ann Tennes, a longtime village communications director, who is not Jewish. “It was a progressive wave,” lamented one source connected to the Lifsics campaign, noting that turnout on April 1 was 12,559 and Tennes won with 49.9 percent, getting 6,218 votes to 4,741 for Lifsics and 1,498 for Charles Isho, an Assyrian-American, adding that it was just 4,394 in 2021 in Skokie, with a current population of 67,824, and 46,554 RVs of which 26.9 percent voted for mayor.

The village is ethnically polyglot but politically tranquil, having had just three mayors over the past 60 years – Al Smith (1965-89), Jacqueline Gorrell (1989-99) and Van Dusen (1999-2025).  Smith was a co-founder of the Caucus Party which was a power-sharing ploy that split offices among self-serving party leaders, eliminating messy contested elections. It was a political honey pot. A recent township referendum, however, eliminated party labels for every in-township office – and brought about the April 1st result. Nobody knew how to run a real campaign. Except, of course, for Tennes, who won in a blowout.

Van Dusen is a political icon in the village and was a trustee when Gorrell quit in 1999; he was elected by the other trustees as mayor, won a contested 2001 race, and was unopposed in the next five elections. Van Dusen, now age 82, was congressman Sid Yates’ (D-9)  field staffer for 26 years (1972-98) before becoming mayor and he, along with county commissioner Josina Morita, the Niles Township Democratic committeeperson, handpicked Lifsics to run and figured their endorsement, along with state senator Laura Fine and congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-9) plus three trustees, would suffice.

“It (the election) was not about ideology or theology,” said Van Dusen, “it was about change,” adding that Tennes’ campaign theme was about “transparency” and “reform” with no criticism of him. Lifsics made rats an issue, demanding more trash tote (cart) pickups, while Isho, said Van Dusen, uttered “just platitudes.”

But the keys were (1) gender identity, in that Tennes was running against two men; and (2) her backing by trustee John Johnson, who has a base in the village and mayoral ambitions. That got her half the turnout and 12 percent of the RVs. Such are mayors made. She also had great name recognition, being entwined in the Skokie administration for decades.

2024 LEFTOVERS: I’ve been sitting on these stats for nearly a half year and I better use them or lose them. While Donald Trump surged among working-class Whites in other urban states it was status quo ante in the Cook County suburbs. As depicted in the attached CHART his 2024 vote of 380,035 was only slightly larger than 2016’s 317,976, an uptick from 29.7 to 35.7 percent. A gain of 6 percent is notable but it is mostly attributable to a decline in turnout as well as the Harris-Walz vote.

Suburban turnout was 1,089,984 in 2016, grew to 1,188,016 in 2020 (up by 100,000) and back to -1,089,830 in 2024 – despite all the intensity and anti-Trump hysteria. The Democratic vote went from 699,003 (Clinton) to 781,238 (Biden) to 672,122 (Harris) while the Trump vote was 317,970/377,033/380,035. There were a few glimmers for Republicans in a universally bleak landscape  where wealthy Whites and middle-class Blacks abhor and despise Trumpism.

There are 30 townships in the county, of which 20 are on the CHART. Of those 30 Trump won only 3 – southwest suburban Orland and Palos, albeit narrowly, and Norwood Park (Norridge and Harwood Heights). Trump lost Leyden (Rosemont, Schiller Park, Franklin Park, Elmwood Park, Northlake)  by 1,077 votes, Maine (Park Ridge, Des Plaines, Mt. Prospect) by 3,958, Elk Grove by 3,127 and Worth (Oak Lawn) by 5,335.

And in low-turnout Cicero, which is 90 percent Latino, Trump doubled his vote from 2016 to 2024 (from 2,264 to 5,422) but still lost by 4,867 votes. But he got totally obliterated elsewhere.

In wealthy, upscale Evanston and Oak Park, both over 70 percent White, where homes in the elite areas go for $2 million and up, Trump Republicans are rare. Both are Sanctuary Cities, but definitely not for people who are not Woke/Left and do not conform to cultural groupthink. Evanston has 49,545 RVs of which 38,010 voted in 2024, of which 3,100 voted Trump-Vance, or 8.1 percent; in  2016 2,808 voted Trump-Pence. That’s 300 more Trumpsters. That’s just gotta stop.  Oak Park has 39,728 RVs of which31,048 voted in 2024, of which 2,688 voted Trump-Vance, or 8.7 percent; in 2016 2,878 voted Trump-Pence. That’s 200 fewer Trumpsters. They’re getting it right.

And New Trier (Wilmette, Winnetka, Glencoe), just north of Evanston on the Lakefront, has 43,766 RVs, of which 33,861 voted in 2024, of which 8,647 voted Trump-Vance, or 25.5- percent; in 2016 7,953 voted Trump-Pence. That’s an uptick of 700. Upscale Northfield (Northbrook, Glenview, Northfield) to the west cast 16,855 votes for Trump-Vance, or 33.5 percent, up from 14,673 in 2016. And in far northwest Schaumburg (Streamwood, Bartlett, Schaumburg), which has a large, growing and wealthy Asian Indian population, Trump got 23,127 votes in 2024, up from 2016’s 18,868, but still only 42 percent.             

The common thread is that those less wealthy vote more Republican, the obverse of a generation ago. Political (and ideological) affiliation has become a cultural statement, augmented by economic status. It’s the better-than-everybody-else crowd versus everybody else – or class warfare with Trump the champion of the “down-trodden” and non-elite. Democratic voters cherish “diversity” of DNA and chromosomes but not of thought. Harris-Walz got 672,122 suburban votes and 126,704 of them came from Evanston, Oak Park, New Trier, Northfield and Schaumburg, or 18.8 percent.

And then there are the Black townships, the largest being Thornton and Rich in the far south and Proviso in the west. Much was prophesized about Black men voting for Trump. There is some truth to that, but not that many did. In Proviso (Maywood, Westchester, Hillside, Bellwood) the Trump vote rose from 11,944 in 2016 to 16,698 and the Dem vote dropped from 50,684 to 46,583.But Harris-Walz still got 74.5 percent. In huge Thornton (Blue Island, Markham, Dolton, Hazel Crest, Calumet City), which has 123 precincts, Trump got a minuscule 800 votes more and in Rich (Flossmoor, Tinley Park, Olympia Fields) 400 votes more.

Combine the White with the Black vote in the suburbs  -- and add Chicago – and any Democrat comes out of Cook County up by 800,000 in a presidential contest. Illinois is now and will forever be a Democratic lock

Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com

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