Election Day forecast: Illinois Statehouse reporter Brenden Moore's predictions

SPRINGFIELD — When it comes to the outcome of the 2024 presidential election, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza this week summed it up best: "Anyone who tells you they know what's going to happen, just don't believe them, because they don't."

The only certainty in this contest between former President Donald Trump — the Republican nominee for the third consecutive cycle — and Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden's shock withdrawal from the race in July, is uncertainty.

Which makes my task all the more difficult as I embark on my once-every-two-years task of handicapping the key races on Illinois voters' ballots.

This was a longtime tradition of my former colleague and political reporter Bernie Schoenberg, who retired from The State Journal-Register in 2020.

Someone covering Illinois politics had to keep it going, so I did in 2022 . I correctly predicted 17 out of 20 races that year. Not bad, so I figured I'd try it again. Please, by all means, hold my feet to the fire if I'm wrong this time.

And remember, these are not endorsements, simply a forecast based on data, anecdotal evidence from my own reporting and, quite frankly, my gut feeling.

We live in a 50/50 country, which make forecasting the results of any national election a practice not for the faint-of-heart.

But this election cycle in particular has been bonkers.

In May, Trump became the country's first former president convicted of a felony when a Manhattan jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal in the run-up to the 2016 election.

Six weeks later, a would-be assassin's bullet grazed his right ear during an outdoor rally in Pennsylvania, coming within inches of taking his life. In September, another alleged assassination attempt , unrelated to the first, was thwarted outside Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

In between those events, Biden and Trump met on a debate stage where the hoarse-voiced incumbent struggled to counter a barrage of falsehoods from his predecessor and at times sounded incoherent in describing his own record .

Widely panned as one of the worst presidential debate performances in history, it set the stage for Biden's departure from the race and the elevation of Harris .

As a result, Harris has only been topping the ticket for just over 14 weeks, a remarkably truncated period in modern presidential politics.

It was a wild summer. And it only fueled the idea that anything can happen.

But I think there are a few things we can definitively say. First, Trump was on a clear path to victory with Biden in the race, perhaps with an even larger Electoral College margin than he attained in 2016.

Second, Harris' promotion to the top of the ticket boosted Democratic enthusiasm while helping the party win back younger voters and some Black and Hispanic voters that supported Biden in 2020 but had peeled off since.

Harris at times has opened a lead on Trump, but the race for the past month or so has remained largely static and stubbornly within the margin of error.

For weeks, my gut was telling me "Trump."

After all, he's got an easier path to 270 electoral votes than Harris does, he has a tendency to outperform his polls and even if Harris wins the popular vote — and I think she will — she'd likely have to win by at least two or three percentage points in order to win the Electoral College.

Despite these advantages, early voting data is promising for Democrats, especially in the "Blue Wall" states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And in a margin-of-error race, a campaign's get-out-the-vote operation matters. Harris beats Trump here and it's not particularly close.

And for all the talk of "silent" Trump voters over the past two election cycles, I think there's a real chance that there are actually more "silent" Harris voters.

Specifically, Republican-leaning women who supported Nikki Haley in the GOP primary and white women without college degrees who support abortion rights. So far, women have outpaced men in early voting.

With all that said, I think the "Blue Wall" holds for Democrats. Combine that with a win in Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District (the Cornhusker State awards electoral votes by congressional district) and, absent any surprises, Harris would receive exactly 270 electoral votes and be elected the nation's first female president.

Trump is running stronger in the Sun Belt swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina), but that won't matter if Harris runs the table in the Upper Midwest.

Again, the race could go either way. All it takes is a routine polling error of a few points in either direction to deliver a decisive Electoral College victory for either Harris or Trump.

If it sounds like I'm hedging my bets, it's because I am. Absolutely nothing would surprise me on Tuesday.

But either way, I believe women will have the final say on Trump.

The big winners in this election will be the gerrymandered legislative and congressional maps that Springfield Democrats enacted in 2021.

Those maps effectively locked in the party's grip on power in the state Capitol and the state's congressional delegation through this decade. Don't expect that to change.

On the federal side, Democrats will likely maintain their 14 of 17 seats in Congress. The only semi-competitive race has been in the 17th Congressional District between incumbent Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Moline, and Republican challenger Joe McGraw, a former judge from Rockford.

The district, which includes Bloomington-Normal, Peoria, the Quad Cities and Rockford, supported Biden for president by eight percentage points in 2020. Sorensen won by four percentage points in 2022.

In politics, a good maxim is to "follow the money." Sorensen has significantly outraised McGraw while the national parties didn't play in this race.

I think Sorensen doubles his 2022 winning margin and returns to Congress.

In the 13th Congressional District, expect incumbent Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, to easily defeat Republican Joshua Loyd. I think she might even win Macoupin County, which is ancestrally Democratic but largely supportive of Trump.

In the 12th Congressional District, Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, easily wins over Democrat Brian Roberts. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Hindsboro, and Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Peoria, are running unopposed.

State legislature

In the General Assembly, Democrats will maintain their supermajorities.

I'd expect no change in the 40-19 Democrat-to-Republican makeup of the Senate. But Democrats appear primed to gain seats in the House, where they hold a 78-40 advantage over Republicans.

If I were a betting man, I'd say Democrats net three seats.

Pickup opportunities include districts represented by Rep. Amy Grant, R-Wheaton; Rep. Marty McLaughlin, R-Barrington Hills; and Rep. Brandun Schweizer, R-Danville.

In the 91st House District, Rep. Sharon Chung, D-Bloomington, wins over Republican challenger Desi Anderson. In the 96th House District, Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, wins easily over doctor Lisa Smith, the GOP nominee.

In the 46th Senate District, state Sen. Dave Koehler, D-Peoria, is expected to win the election, in which he faces GOP challenger Sally Owens.

There are also three advisory questions on the ballot in Illinois. Whether you vote for them this year, just know they will remain anonymous.

The questions center around the creation of a 3% additional tax on millionaires, whether election officials should be suspended for interfering with the counting of votes and if IVF treatments would continue to be covered.

On Election Night in the swing states, we may not know.

Contact Brenden Moore at . :

State Government Reporter