Quarterly reports filed this week with the Illinois State Board of Elections show a couple of trends in local mayoral elections — more money is flowing into these non-partisan races and more political action committees are getting involved.
In Galesburg, former mayor John Pritchard's campaign spent more than $135,000 between Jan. 1 and March 31, which was 20 times more than incumbent Peter Schwartzman's campaign spent during the same time period to win the race.
Four years ago, when Pritchard was the incumbent, he spent around $22,000 in the quarter leading up to the election, and challenger Schwartzman spent around $10,000.
This election, Pritchard’s campaign received $10,000 in individual contributions during the quarter and $12,500 from three PACs — Galesburg Forward, Restore Our City, and the Realtors Political Action Committee.
But the majority of the campaign was self-funded, with Pritchard — who owns and operates 11 radio stations in Illinois and Iowa — loaning the campaign $76,000 in the first quarter of this year.
TSPR asked Pritchard why this race was worth investing in at that level.
"As I said numerous times in the campaign, I love our city and I couldn't sit idly by when I knew my financial and business skills were needed. I wanted to make Galesburg a state-of-the-art city that serves our people better than other cities our size," Pritchard said, noting that he accepts the voters’ decision and will do what he can “in other capacities to help our city blossom.”
Robin Johnson is a political consultant who has advised a number of local campaigns, including a past one of Pritchard’s. He said some people may object to self-funded campaigns, but there are legitimate reasons for doing that.
“Anybody that has wealth and wants to invest it in their own campaign, they are certainly free to do that,” said Johnson, who teaches at Monmouth College. “In a lot of ways, it avoids taking contributions from other people that may raise eyebrows, and in some ways, it may be preferred by candidates, just to not have to raise money, which can be like a root canal.”
Schwartzman’s campaign had around $4,300 at the start of the year. He then received around $6,500 in individual contributions, plus $7,300 in in-kind contributions. The campaign spent less than $6,700 in the three months leading up to the April 1 election.
In a post-election interview with TSPR, Schwartzman credited the power of his ground game in winning despite being vastly outspent.
“I like to walk and talk and knock on doors,” Schwartzman said. “I also want people to know they can call the mayor. Everyone should have my phone number.”
The campaign of Monmouth Mayor Rod Davies, who was elected to a sixth term, spent almost $21,000 in the quarter leading up to the election to retain his seat.
Davies had around $12,000 on hand when his political committee was established in February, then received $1,250 in individual contributions and loaned himself around $7,000.
Challenger Sean Cavanaugh’s campaign spent $3,000 during the same time period, according to the report, and received $4,300 in contributions, including $3,000 from the Make Illinois Great Again PAC.
A closer look at expenses
The largest expenditure in Pritchard’s six-figure campaign was more than $50,000 to Peoria-based Coleman Printing, for postage, printing, and mailers.
Pritchard paid nearly $42,000 for “campaign work” to Campaign Eagle, which is run by the same people that formed the Make Illinois Great Again PAC and Forgottonia Times. He also paid $15,000 to Peoria-based political consultant Steve Shearer.
In addition, Pritchard paid $16,000 to his own company, Galesburg Broadcasting, for radio advertising.
Schwartzman spent a little over $400 on brochures and yard signs last year. During the first quarter of this year, campaign expenses included yard signs, a billboard, media production, and promotional items. The largest single expense was more than $1,900 to Galesburg Broadcasting for radio advertising.
In Monmouth, Davies’ campaign paid nearly $14,000 to Davenport-based Victory Enterprises for postage, printing, texting services, advertising, and digital ads. Davies also spent more than $4,000 for radio advertising on WRAM and WMOI.
Through March 31, the only reported expenses for Cavanaugh’s campaign are both to Clear Profits Digital Marketing of Monmouth. That includes $1,500 for photography services and another $1,500 for fundraising and advertising.
Negative campaigning
In addition to the usual yard signs, this year’s local mayoral elections included multiple mailers, text messages — and some negative, partisan campaigning.
For example, in Galesburg, a text paid for by Galesburg Forward PAC attacked Schwartzman, calling him a “well-known radical socialist.”
In Monmouth, voters received mailers paid for by Make Illinois Great Again PAC that, among other things, attacked Davies for having contributed to former State Senator John Sullivan’s campaigns in the past. The issue there, according to the PAC’s mailing, is that Sullivan is a Democrat.
Johnson — who has advised Davies’ campaigns, including this year’s — said the bottom line is, the negative campaigning did not work in Galesburg or Monmouth.
“They were really not related to doing the job at all. I mean, Davies was hit for giving money to a very popular Democratic State Senator and they conveniently ignored that he gave to a lot of other Republican candidates,” Johnson said. “It was trying to inject the partisan divide in the local campaigns, which I think is bad for municipal government.”
Johnson said, as a campaign advisor, he finds it very legitimate to go after a candidate’s voting record and relate it to how it impacts people’s lives.
“I've done attack ads before, but you've got to be very careful with how you do it, especially at the local level where people know both candidates. And it requires a level of care and concern. And these were just both very, very clumsy,” Johnson said.
Johnson said PAC involvement is a relatively new phenomenon in local, non-partisan elections.
“They do this a lot, of course, in presidential, congressional, and governor races. Higher-level races. But this is one of the first times I’ve seen it locally in municipal races,” he said. “The question becomes why they choose to conduct their campaigns that way through third parties instead of just having the donations show up through their own campaign committee.”
Tri States Public Radio produced this story. TSPR relies on financial support from our readers and listeners in order to provide coverage of the issues that matter to west central Illinois, southeast Iowa, and northeast Missouri. As someone who values the content created by TSPR's news department please consider making a financial contribution.
