Forest Park voters favored Pat Quinn over Bruce Rauner in the Illinois Governor’s race by almost 3-to-one. Quinn got about the same percentage of the Forest Park vote in the 2014 election as he did in 2010 when ran against Republican Bill Brady. Quinn lost the election statewide 46 percent to Rauner’s 51 percent.
Of a total of 4,022 voters casting ballots in the 2014 governor’s race, 2,897, or 72 percent of Forest Parkers voted for Democrat Quinn and Lt. Governor candidate Paul Vallas. Republican Rauner and running mate Evelyn Sanguinetti received 1,026 Forest Park votes in the race, or 25 percent. Libertarian Chad Grimm and running mate Alexander Cummings received three percent of the vote, or 99 votes.
One hundred and ninety-four more voters cast votes in the senate race than the governor’s race, implying those voters (about five percent) left the governor spot blank, or voted for “none of the above.”
The same percentage of Forest Parkers voted for Quinn when he ran in 2010 against Republican Bill Brady. Quinn got 72 percent of the Forest Park vote in 2010.
Quinn had a good working relationship with Forest Park Mayor Anthony Calderone, who called him, “the best governor that I’ve seen in my 16 years as mayor of Forest Park,” in October. Forest Park has received upwards of $6 million in grant money from the state for infrastructure updates and park district improvements in the past year. Calderone didn’t respond by press time to an emailed request for a comment about the election.
In the U.S. Senate race, Tuesday, Democrat incumbent Dick Durbin collected 3,085 Forest Park votes, or 77 percent. Republican candidate James Oberweis won 19 percent, or 771 votes and Libertarian Sharon Hansen picked up 148, or four percent.
In Tuesday’s election, 4,216 of 8,240 registered Forest Park voters, or 51 percent cast ballots, lower than Cook County’s percentage of 52 percent, but higher than the rest of Proviso Township, where only 48 percent of voters turned up at the polls. Statewide, 47 percent of registered voters came out to vote.
