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Which presidential campaign? The Electoral College sidelines most American voters

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Which presidential campaign? The Electoral College sidelines most American voters

Christine Fernando
| Associated press

Waukegan, Illinois. – On a table in the office of the Waukegan Township Democrats sits a box of postcards with Wisconsin addresses collected at a pizza party to write postcards to recruit voters there. Homemade Harris-Walz signs lean against the table.

“We know they’re handing these out all over Wisconsin,” said Matt Muchowski, president of the Democratic club. “Here in Waukegan, it was harder to get Harris yard signs, so we printed our own signs.”

One reason they are scarce: Waukegan is in Illinois, which is not a presidential swing state. It is just over the border of one.

Muchowski said this is emblematic of the limited attention cities outside 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 relatively small number of states that are evenly divided politically and ensures that the bulk of campaign dollars – and the attention of presidential candidates – to those states.

The lack of attention has left voters in much of the country feeling like they and the issues they care about have been sidelined. It’s a divide that’s acutely felt in places like Waukegan, one of Chicago’s most remote suburbs.

The last time a presidential candidate set foot in a working-class, majority-Latino city was when former President Donald Trump landed at the airport in 2020. Trump walked out of Air Force One, waved briefly and then immediately got into an SUV that drove towards the other side. the border with Kenosha, Wisconsin.

‘Lost in the national conversation’

In Racine, a similarly sized city in Wisconsin just 50 miles north of Waukegan, Trump hosted a rally in June near a harbor overlooking Lake Michigan, where he spoke glowingly about development along the lakeshore, talking about the revitalization efforts in Racine and metro Milwaukee. area, and emphasized the importance of their constituents in his bid to return to the White House.

Just a month earlier, before dropping out of the race, President Joe Biden touted a new Microsoft center in Racine County during a campaign stop in the city. The city just south of Milwaukee has become a gathering place for presidential hopefuls as Wisconsin, one of only 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 like Waukegan get “lost in the national conversation” during the presidential election, 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 is frustrating that the votes of certain voters count more, and that they disregard and discredit the votes of more urban, more voters of color.”

Campaign visits to neighboring Wisconsin: 27

Illinois is a reliably Democratic state; it has not voted for a Republican presidential candidate since George HW Bush in 1988. That predictability is reflected in the presidential campaigns every four years.

Aside from fundraising, Republican and Democratic presidential tickets have gone to Illinois only twice this year — once for an appearance by Trump before a group representing black journalists and once for 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 made a total of just over 200 campaign stops — three-quarters of them in these seven states, according to a database of campaign events 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: presidential campaigns tailor their appearances to specific provinces they believe are crucial to their success. The AP’s database shows that its campaign events in the seven battleground states are concentrated in counties with 22.7 million registered voters — just 10% of all voters registered nationwide for this year’s presidential election.

Electoral College, a system of ‘neglect’

Many Waukegan residents wish it would be on the candidates’ radar as well. They said they are proud of the way multiculturalism has shaped their city, a place where nearly 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 businesses left the shores of the city’s lake starting in the 1960s, tens of thousands of jobs disappeared.

Waukegan never fully recovered.

Poverty and unemployment rates are well above state and national averages. The school district is one of the most poorly funded in the province, suffers from understaffing and has poor graduation rates. And the lakeshore is a sagging reminder of the city’s heyday: an asbestos factory, a coal-fired power plant and a gypsum factory all lie idle next to the public beaches. Next to them lies a criss-cross network of abandoned railway lines.

The industries brought with them another problem: a legacy of environmental damage. The city of about 86,000 residents has five federal Superfund sites. In 2019, the state Pollution Control Board ruled that Waukegan’s coal-fired power plant violated environmental regulations and contaminated groundwater, and the plant was closed three years later.

The scene in Waukegan contrasts with Racine’s pristine marina, where luxury condos flank coffee shops, restaurants and hotels.

Thomas Maillard, Democratic State Central Committee man for Illinois’ 10th Congressional District and a lifelong resident of Lake County, said the contrast between the two cities is clear. In Waukegan, he says he’s concerned about gun violence and access to good-paying jobs, affordable housing, child care and health care.

“The history of Waukegan is unfortunately the history of this country’s neglect of Rust Belt communities, especially along the Great Lakes,” he said. “… People are having a hard time.”

Maillard pointed to the Electoral College system as the culprit, calling it “a system of potential neglect.”

‘You have to hear us’

Sam Cunningham, former mayor of Waukegan, said people feel forgotten in the city he has called home since elementary school. It is clear, he said, that the national agenda favors some states over others.

“They’re probably thinking, ‘Why put money here when we need it in these battleground states?'” he said. “I understand the logic, but I also understand how we feel. Do we feel slighted? Of course we do. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

Margaret Padilla Carrasco, who has lived in the Waukegan area all her life, drove to Milwaukee in August to see Harris speak. If Harris were to visit Waukegan, Carrasco said she would take her to see the deteriorating homes on the city’s south side, to assisted living facilities where seniors struggle to pay their bills and to a homeless shelter near her home.

Her message to Harris, she said, is not to count on their votes. Saddled with job losses and rising costs of living, people in Waukegan are frustrated, she said. While she still plans to vote for Harris, Carrasco is hearing more and more Waukegan voters are pulling away from the Democratic Party, which has long won the lion’s share of the city’s vote.

“If you don’t spend time with us, don’t expect us to vote for you,” said Carrasco, 65, who trains young Latinas in Waukegan to ride horses in the traditional Mexican Charro style. ‘You have 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 about most — homeschooling, abortion restrictions, Second Amendment rights and government spending — are often ignored by presidential candidates.

“There’s probably a mentality among a lot of conservatives, especially in Illinois, that think there’s no point in saying anything,” he said.

‘A city full of courage and imagination’

Despite the 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 like housing and environmental justice.

On a sunny Tuesday recently, Pastor Julie Contreras, who helps support recent immigrants to the city, had a long to-do list. She rallied community members to rebuild the roof for an undocumented couple whose home was damaged in a storm. She then 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 local nonprofit United Giving Hope. She chided candidates for simply stopping by the city’s airport before heading to Wisconsin without talking to voters there about their struggles.

“They’re missing out on a beautiful community here,” she said.

Muchowski, of the Waukegan Township Democrats, said when the city feels ignored, residents look out for each other. It’s something they’ve gotten used to, he said.

“Waukegan is a city of courage and imagination for many people,” Muchowski said. “I don’t know many people who say, ‘I want to move across the country to Waukegan.’ But the people who come here really see the potential.”

If only the candidates would also see the potential, he said.

Multimedia journalist Kevin S. Vineys of the Associated Press in Washington contributed to this report.

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