Are Safe Seats Really Safe?

If you keep driving past O’Hare on the Tri-State Tollway you you’re in Illinois’s 8th Congressional District. This post about the 8th by Patrick Pfingsten at Illinoize surprised me a bit. What has been thought of as a “safe” seat may not be that safe after all:

A new poll released by a group promoting term limits shows both President Joe Biden and Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Schaumburg) struggling in a suburban district drawn to elect a Democrat.

The new 8th District includes Rosemont, Schaumburg, Barrington, and Elgin. President Biden won the district by around 15 points in 2020 and Governor Pritzker won it by around 8 points in 2018.

The poll, conducted by RMG Research, showed President Biden’s approval rating 12 points underwater in what was expected to be a safe Democratic district. 43% of respondents approve of the job the President is doing while 55% oppose the job he’s doing. 2% were unsure.

In the race between Krishnamoorthi, an Indian-born Congressman elected in 2016, and Palatine Republican Chris Dargis, who was most recently Chief Marketing Officer for Chicago-based cars.com, was far closer than expected.

The survey showed Krishnamoorthi leading by just six points, 45%-39%, with 17% undecided or supporting someone else.

Although their definitions of “safe” differ a bit amongst each other FiveThirtyEight, Cook’s Political Report, and Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball all list the Illinois 8th District as “safe”. In general that means a seat by which the candidate of one party or the other leads by 16 points or more. Six points isn’t a “safe” seat by anybody’s reckoning.

If that poll can be credited it illustrates how up for grabs things may be in the upcoming midterms. IMO Democrats need to watch their flanks and focus on issues that concern suburban voters. Those issues tend to be pocketbook issues and crime rather than culture wars ones.