Written by Algonquin’s Marc Avelar:
Discernment Needed with Election Analytics
The April 1, 2025, Consolidated Election has come and gone, and did Republicans all over Chicagoland take it on the chin with Democrats sweeping all 12 contested township races against Republicans on the ballot in Dundee and Elgin townships.
So much for my prediction for the reelection of the incumbent Dundee Township supervisor.
Here are the official returns for Dundee Township supervisor, the retail sales tax referendum in Dundee Township and the Dundee Township clerk’s race:
The Democrats flipped the supervisor’s office with 52% of the vote and flipped the open clerk’s office with 56.6% of the vote.
The sales tax failed in the 35 Dundee Township precincts by over a 3-1 margin.
Clearly, there was ticket-splitting given the margin in the supervisor’s race is significantly lower than the clerk’s race.
In spite of over ¾ of the voters casting ballots against the tax increase, the Democrats still swept all of the contested races in Dundee Township.
Even in nonpartisan races, the Democrats prevailed.
Take the open president’s race in the village of Sleepy Hollow matching two first-term trustees seeking the mayor’s post:
McGuire lost by a nearly 2 to 1 margin to Boe, who was the Democratic nominee for Kane County Board District 21 back in 2022.
Democrat Boe will be sworn-in as village president in May.
When examining the wipeout of Republicans in Kane County on April 1, or any public policy, campaign or really anything, I strive to apply discernment, to get passed the talking points, narratives, platitudes and bromides to get to the truth with facts and metrics.
So, in an election where the Republican message against the Kane County retail sales tax referendum was effective countywide including in Dundee Township, why did Democrats sweep the 6 contested races for Dundee Township offices (supervisor, clerk, 4 trustees) and high-profile nonpartisan races?
State Senator Cristina Castro’s effective multiple targeted mailers is a good place to start.
So, with every targeted mailing Castro sent through the Democratic Party of Illinois (DPI), combined with additional DPI get-out-the-vote (GOTV) efforts through
- texting,
- emails and
- digital marketing,
- Castro’s effective letter linking concerns over President Trump’s first two months back in the White House and voting for her endorsed candidates for township and other local offices,
Castro played a significant role in delivering big wins for the Democrats not only in Kane County, but across the 8th Congressional District (IL-08) where she currently serves as the Democratic state central committeewoman.
With nearly all of her endorsed candidates winning on April 1, she helped elect public officials and their grassroots volunteers all of whom will be obligated to return the favor to Castro in 2026 in both the primary and general elections should she run for Congress if Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D, Schaumburg) runs for the U.S. Senate as expected.
Recent social media posts by 2024 8th IL-08 nominee Mark Rice’s campaign need discernment.
On April 13, Mark Rice’s campaign Facebook page posted the following:
Noting that “rr” is Rice’s short hand for “radical Raja”, or Congressman Krishnamoorthi, Rice’s post shows over the past 10 election cycles, he received the most votes of any Republican running for IL-08.
After Senator Dick Durbin’s (D, Springfield) announced his retirement on April 23, Rice’s campaign followed up with a Facebook 2026 campaign announcement the following morning:
Full Context First Step to Apply Discernment
Reading the “Republican Vote Totals in IL-8 20 years Wins and Losses”, something was off looking at the years.
While 3 different congressional maps of IL-08 are analyzed, putting that important context aside, the trend has the Republican nominees receiving at least 100K votes in presidential election years, while mid-term election years had the Republican nominee receiving less than 100K, including the one year, 2010, Republicans won IL-08.
But in the 2020 presidential election year, Rice’s analytics states the IL-08 Republican nominee received 68K votes, breaking the established trend of at least 100K votes for the Republican nominee in IL-08 in presidential years.
Something wasn’t right, so applying discernment through my researching the Illinois State Board of Elections results for IL-08 congressional elections going back to 2006, full context was applied challenging the Rice campaign’s conclusion of a historic record set last fall in IL-08:
Note the highlighted 2020 opponent to Congressman Krishnamoorthi: THERE WAS NO REPUBLICAN NOMINEE IN 2020 ONLY A LIBERTARIAN CHALLENGER!
In other words, the Rice campaign used a Libertarian’s dreadful performance against Krishnamoorthi in 2020, which Krishnamoorthi won with over 73% of the vote, and called the Libertarian a “Republican” twice in separate Facebook posts.
The Rice campaign’s conclusion Rice achieved “48% better then 2020 (last presidential)” is a wrong comparison to a presidential year where no Republican challenged Krishnamoorthi in the General Election.
In my honest opinion, the Rice campaign should have made the distinction known.
What else can be discerned with the full context, including the number of votes the Democrats received over the 10 elections Rice used for comparisons?
Let’s dig deeper.
No Difference between Rice’s increase in votes volume compared to Entire District
Given 2022 and 2024 elections used the same current IL-08 map, one can compare the votes for each Republican nominee against Krishnamoorthi from 2022 to 2024.
Applying discernment with the analytics, Krishnamoorthi received 47% more votes in the presidential election last fall compared with the number of votes he received in 2022.
Rice received 46% more votes over 2022 IL-08 Republican nominee Mark Dargis.
But the real comparison is assessing the increase in total votes cast in IL-08.
The 303K votes cast in 2024 is a 46% increase over the total IL-08 votes cast in 2022.
Rice’s increase in votes volume over Dargis is keeping with trend for the entire district, while Krishnamoorthi performed slightly better with 47% increase over 2022.
Krishnamoorthi’s votes increased, and so did his margin in 2024 where he bested Rice with 57.1% of the vote, compared with Rice’s 42.9%, or 14.2 percentage points difference.
In 2022, Krishnamoorthi’s victory over Dargis was by 13.8 percentage points.
The 0.4 percentage points performance difference against Krishnamoorthi between Rice and Dargis is miniscule, but the data proves Dargis performed slightly better than Rice against Krishnamoorthi, in spite of Rice receiving over 130K votes last fall.
Conclusion
Republicans have much to learn about what has happened to their nominees in November of 2024 and April of 2025.
2022 66th state Representative District nominee Connie Cain (R, Gilberts) pointed out Republicans lost on April 1 when permanent vote-by-mail ballots hit the street on March 7.
Others are talking the need to do “ballot harvesting” which in Illinois is much more restrictive then in places like California.
Applied analytics that can stand up to discernment is an important first step to figure out what happened, and more importantly, determine how to prevent the same failures on November 3, 2026.
Simple solutions promoted by political consultants will not solve the problem, and discernment will protect both candidates and the Kane County Republican Central Committee to not only solving the electoral losses problem, but to fully and accurately understand what the problem really is.
Marc Avelar lives in Dundee Township and served as an elected trustee for the village of Algonquin in the late 1990s. In 2022, Avelar was appointed to the Dundee Township Mental Health Board & has served as president of the Board for the past 2¼ years. The opinions are his own.
