THE ILLINOIZE: Thursday Free for All...GOP poll...Biden hits a Kankakee County farm...COVID hospitalizations
May 12, 2022
Good morning, Illinois.
I had a chance to talk to my old friend Steve Holstein, a longtime morning radio show host in Champaign, on his podcast this week. It’s a bit of a manifesto on politics and how we need to entice better people to get in the game. We also talk about babies, masks, and shoes. Click here to listen.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the baby formula shortages throughout the country and, as the parent of a 5-month-old chunk who is eating us out of house and home, they aren’t lying about the shortage.
If you order online from Amazon, if you catch a bad day, you may have to wait two weeks for your order. Places like Target and Walgreens (Walgreens jacks up their prices compared to everyone else) have limits on how much you can buy and I’ve had to hit four different stores in one evening when we were nearly out one night.
Luckily, we have cars, lots of stores, and money in the bank to buy what we need I can’t help but think of the parents that are really struggling right now. I hope this gets this solved soon. But if you’re donating to a food bank or shelter anytime soon, ask them what they need for baby formula. It could really help someone in need.
We’re thankful for your support and the overwhelming number of you who have renewed your subscriptions to be paid subscribers to our newsletter. I’m just blown away that so many of you believe in the work that we’re doing. I’m not always going to make you happy or even upset you, but I’m always going to tell the truth.
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Let’s get to it.
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Poll: Irvin, Bailey emerge as frontrunners in GOP primary (WGN-TV)
The June 28 Illinois Republican gubernatorial primary is shaping up to be a two-man race between Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin and State Sen. Darren Bailey of downstate Xenia. But with more than a third of voters still undecided, the contest is far from over.
A new WGN-TV/The Hill/Emerson College Polling survey of likely GOP primary voters shows Irvin leading the field with 24.1% support, followed by Bailey with 19.8%. Suburban businessman Gary Rabine is in third place with 7.8%, closely followed by venture capitalist Jessie Sullivan with 7.3%. Attorney Max Solomon and former state Senator Paul Schimpf are both trailing far behind with 2.3 % and 1.9% respectively.
With early voting set to begin across Illinois on May 19, a large group of voters is still up for grabs. About 36.9% of respondents say they are undecided about the top of the ticket.
On the campaign trail and in television ads, the candidates have been drawing contrasts on crime, taxes and corruption. But the economy is by far the number one concern for Republican voters who participated in this poll. Asked the most important issue facing Illinois, voters overwhelmingly choose the economy — jobs, inflation and taxes. Crime comes in a distant second (15.2%), while immigration (6.5%), COVID (4.3%), education (3.6), health care (4.7%) and the war in Ukraine (2.0%) fall even further on the list.
Bailey and Irvin still lead the field when respondents were asked which candidate would best manage the state’s economy — both hovering around 21%. Jesse Sullivan and Gary Rabine split the second largest group of respondents at around 9% each.
Here are some more details on that poll. It jives with a poll we told subscribers about last week that was conducted a couple of weeks before that showed the race 27-25-16 for Irvin, Bailey, and Sullivan. My guess is with as hard as the Irvin campaign is hitting Sullivan, he’s probably doing better in their internals than 7%. A Bailey spokesman texted me yesterday saying the poll confirms a two-person race “for the heart and soul of the Republican party.”
Related: GOP governor hopeful Darren Bailey makes campaign stop in Rockford (Rockford Register-Star)
Biden touts agriculture in Kankakee County visit (Kankakee Daily-Journal)
In an extremely rare occurrence, Kankakee County played host to a visit from the president of the United States, and the message Joe Biden delivered was his desire to aid the American farmer.
Speaking inside the 40-foot-by-40-foot toolshed of Kankakee-based farmer Jeff O'Connor — packed with visiting media, local officials and O'Connor family and friends — Biden said his administration is pushing ahead on two fronts to aid agriculture.
The first front is getting supply chain issues addressed to deal with farm products — most notably fertilizers produced in Ukraine — so the spiking prices, tripled in most cases, would be eased.
The president, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly addressed the second front by vowing to ease crop insurance issues for farmers who seek to double-crop soybeans on harvested wheat fields in an effort to gain needed soybean production.
On a sweltering day which more closely resembled late July or early August rather than mid-May, Biden addressed a largely agricultural audience at the west Kankakee County farm of Jeff and Gina O'Connor.
Related: Video: Biden speaks at IBEW Convention in Chicago (PBS NewsHour)
COVID-19 hospital admissions continue to climb in Illinois (Shaw Media)
The Illinois Department of Public Health reported 6,158 new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 and 11 additional deaths Wednesday.
The state’s seven-day rolling average for new cases per day went up to 5,398, the highest average since Feb. 10.
As of late Tuesday, Illinois had 861 COVID-19 patients in the hospital, an overnight increase of 15 patients and the most total people in the hospital with COVID-19 since March 2. Of those, 86 were in intensive care units, and 19 were on ventilators.
It’s obvious that cases are going to tick up here and there, the issue will be hospitalizations. And, if hospitalizations start to strain the medical system again, will Governor Pritzker take action? Mask mandates and capacity limits six months before an election is nothing anyone on his team wants to deal with.
SOME TOP LINKS FROM THE WEEK SO FAR
Garman Successor Lisa Holder White Will Be First Black Woman on Court
Irvin News Conference Becomes Battle with Media over Abortion, Attacks
Opinion: Richard Irvin Doesn’t Appear to be Up to the Challenge
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