Illinois Supreme Court justices Mary K. O'Brien (left) and Elizabeth Rochford. | twitter.com/marykayobrienil; facebook.com/JudgeRochford/
Illinois Supreme Court justices Mary K. O'Brien (left) and Elizabeth Rochford. | twitter.com/marykayobrienil; facebook.com/JudgeRochford/
SPRINGFIELD – Six top Democratic campaign committees spent about $63 million in last year’s fourth quarter and their Republican counterparts spent about $14 million.
That’s $9 of Democratic spending for every $2 Republicans spent.
Democrat Governor JB Pritzker’s campaign spent almost $8 for every dollar of his Republican opponent Darren Bailey.
The clean sweep that resulted for Democrats showed the futility of depending on individual voters to pay campaign bills.
At least 1,000 individuals contributed to Bailey, but few of them gave more than $1,000 and their total fell short of $500,000.
Bailey received two big boosts from individuals, $2 million from Richard Uihlein of Chicago and $701,000 from his mother Jean Bailey of Louisville.
Pritzker, who has financed his own campaigns and generously supported other candidates, received one individual contribution.
It came from his cousin Jennifer Pritzker.
Mailing contractor Deliver Strategies of Arlington, Va. contributed $5,061,638.91 to Pritzker, not in cash but “in kind,” meaning Pritzker didn’t need to pay the bill.
That’s more than Bailey spent on all campaign activities.
Committees of Democrat Supreme Court candidates Elizabeth Rochford and Mary O’Brien spent almost twice as much as Republican committees of Mark Curran and Michael Burke.
An independent committee supporting Rochford and O’Brien spent more than seven times as much as an independent committee supporting Curran and Burke.
The disparity in resources represents a drastic decline from 2014, when Illinois voters elected Republican Bruce Rauner as governor.
Rauner contributed $23,450,000 to his campaign, Kenneth Griffin of Chicago contributed $9 million, and Uihlein contributed $2 million.
Other individuals contributed almost $5 million.
Jennifer Pritzker gave Rauner $50,000.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, Rauner spent more than $19 million and received the benefit of more than $3 million in contributions in kind.
He paid about $7 million for television messages, $2 million for other media, and $1.4 million for telephone calls.
In the fourth quarter of 2018, with the prospect of a second term growing dimmer by the day, he spent a little more than $6 million.
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