By Mike Matejka
Next Tuesday, February 28, Bloomington has a mayoral primary election, with five candidates vying to become Bloomington’s next mayor. Of the five candidates, three will be eliminated, the top two vote getters will proceed to the April 4 election.
Now I’m not going to gaze into my crystal ball and try to predict the winners. But one thing I will go out on a limb and predict – I will be amazed if more than 15 or 20 percent of Bloomington’s voters actually vote next Tuesday.
What do I base that on? I did a little statistical checking. When Congressman Aaron Schock resigned in 2015, there was a special primary, with both Democratic and Republican candidates wanting to lead their party for the special Congressional election for the 18th District. In those primaries, 12.68 percent of Bloomington voters, participated, 12.03 percent of Normal and county voters.
In 2009 and 2013, there were Bloomington only primaries, just like this coming Tuesday. In 2009, all of 3.24 percent of Bloomington voters participated in the Republican primary for the Township Supervisors’ race. In 2013, there was again a Republican primary in Bloomington, this time for both the Supervisor and the Assessor. All of 5.10 percent of voters participated.
Now one could counter that these were partisan primaries, which would limit participation. But our voter turn-out for local elections is still very weak. Our current Bloomington Mayor, Tari Renner, well remembers the night of April 21, 2009. Bloomington was electing a mayor and city council members. Renner lost that election by all of 15 votes. Less than 20 percent of Bloomington’s registered voters participated in that contest.
Renner finally won his Mayoral seat four years later in 2013. In that city election, just short of 21 percent of voters went to the polls.
To the five candidates hoping to be Mayor, next Tuesday is a momentous day. They’ve knocked on doors, raised funds, debated and didn’t just sit around and complain, but actually were brave enough to put their name out and try to win. So will we crack the 15 percent participation mark next Tuesday? I’m hoping next Wednesday you can all point at me and laugh, tell me my crystal ball has a big crack on it. Please, make a fool of me, vote next Tuesday.
Mike Matejka is the Governmental Affairs director for the Great Plains Laborers District Council, covering 11,000 union Laborers in northern Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. He lives in Normal. He served on the Bloomington City Council for 18 years, is a past president of the McLean County Historical Society and Vice-President of the Illinois Labor History Society.
The opinions expressed within WJBC’s Forum are solely those of the Forum’s author, and are not necessarily those of WJBC or Cumulus Media, Inc.
