Illinois

The fall election for governor in Illinois is now set as the current Republican Governor, Bruce Rauner will square off against Hyatt hotel heir J.B. Pritzker.  You can see the results here.  Both men are uber wealthy and both sunk a significant amount of their own money into the primary campaign.  Pritzker put $70 million dollars of his fortune in the democratic primary and garnered 573,679 votes votes.  It cost him $122 per vote.  Gov. Rauner put $50 million into his campaign but only garnered 361,301 votes for that amount.  Each vote cost him a bit over $138.  Whatever the amount spent the pundits are saying the fall election could be one of the costliest battles ever for a governor's race.  

We're going to pay more attention to this race in the coming months.  We're not going to do it to try to discuss politics or endorse a particular candidate but to highlight the terrible economic condition that we in Illinois find ourselves in.  To me, this election may be the last significant chance the state has to set things right.  We already have one of the highest tax burdens of any state in the country and I don't see how that isn't going to get much worse down the road.  What we'll do is highlight the issues going forward and present the candidates positions as they are defined in the coming months.  We will not editorialize or endorse.  We will just lay out facts.  We're going to do this because the majority of our clients live in Illinois and the decisions that will be made in the next few years are going to significantly impact their lives.  Our goal is to give them the tools to analyze what the economic consequences of this election may mean for them.  The rest of our readers can take a back seat when we run these posts and be glad they don't have some of our problems.  

Look for this starting next week.

Back Monday.