A live read of Illinois House District 68 — a true D+1 toss-up. We size up the electorate, the persuadable middle, and the field operation it would take to flip it.
Step by stepThe written version
1
Find a district worth targeting
Scan the state for a race that's close enough to be winnable rather than a safe seat. HD68 stands out as a genuinely competitive opportunity.
2
Read the voter profile
The seat has been held since 2021 and has a public, accessible voter file. It's a little under 70,000 registered voters with turnout around 45–46% — a bit low, which actually leaves room for GOTV to move the result.
3
Gauge the partisan balance
The district is D+1 — essentially even. Hard and soft partisans run close on both sides, and there's a large block of roughly 15,000 unidentified, persuadable voters. That middle is the opportunity.
4
Build the organization early
Heading into summer, if volunteer recruitment is behind, start with cheap, efficient texting to reach reliable primary and gubernatorial-year voters and grow the base before fall field work begins.
5
Size the field operation
Nothing substitutes for face-to-face contact. June through September is roughly 100 hours a month — about 25 hours a week, or ~28 volunteer shifts, which means around 56 active volunteers. It's a real lift.
6
Budget mail and paid help
Two to four mail pieces to the same list run about $15K–$30K. If the campaign is short-handed, a volunteer recruiter and organizer keep the field program moving.
7
Do the turnout math
The hard-supporter GOTV universe is around 1,000 voters. If persuadables split evenly the race starts roughly 500 votes down — closeable by turning out supporters, winning a slice of the middle, and lifting low-propensity voters.
8
Recruit the right candidate
The ideal candidate already has ties — a prior run, municipal office, or a large local organization — which shrinks the list. Without that, it takes someone genuinely willing to knock doors all summer.
9
Sequence the calendar
Build the organization first, run ID and persuasion through the summer, then push every identified supporter and low-propensity voter to the polls as early voting opens in October.
Read the full transcript
0:00 So let's take a look at Illinois, see if we can find a state representative race here that's interesting enough to run in, I like to start with the events just because they're close and let's see 68, first one of the lists looks pretty good, let's take a look at what that looks like in Ballotpedia.
0:21 Alright, Dave's been in since 21, that's sufficiently long to be tied to the, the district. We do have our public in here, so that's good for us.
0:35 So registered voters, a little less than 70K, estimated turnout about 45, 46%, that seems to be run of the mill for Illinois.
0:46 It's a little lower than what you'd expect out of, I don't know, a district, what I'd hope for out of a district.
0:54 but actually if we're gonna be doing some GOTV here that gives us a little bit extra opportunity. The district is D plus 1, it is super even and if we look down here at the active voter universe breakdown it looks like hard Republicans outnumber hard Democrats, soft Republicans are outnumbered by soft
1:21 Democrat slightly, and then there is just a huge, huge base of unidentified or persuadable folks. 15K, it's not massive in its own right, but for a district like this it is.
1:37 I would start out by, you know, we're in, we're moving into June right now, and so assuming that that Kathy that this candidate who's in here now has done some volunteer recruitment if she's got the organization she needs and obviously we can move on to phase two but if she's a little behind I think
2:00 I'd be looking to send a few texts out it's cheap efficient if you can have conversations with these hardened software publicans people who vote in primaries and who were regular voters in gubernatorial years for a relatively cost-efficient price here.
2:20 It's in a few texts and see if I could build out my organization a little bit more. Because again, you know, nothing is a substitute for face-to-face contact and that is a lot of hours, right?
2:32 You've got June, July, August, September, four months, which is a hundred hours a month, 25 hours a week, which means, let's see, we got a volunteer recruitment down here.
2:45 Oh, something like 38, or sorry, something like 28 volunteer shifts a week means you need about 56 active volunteers. That's a lot.
2:58 Obviously, you know, mail is the same list here. And so that would cost you 15 to 30K if you want to send two to four male pieces.
3:10 I'd also be looking to hire a volunteer recruiter and volunteer organizer to help with voter outreach. During this time it's basically just going to be a lot of work.
3:24 But again, the GOTV lists here are quite large. If you're just looking at supporters, you're looking at you know thousand folks.
3:33 And again, the difference here, 5, 11 and a half, 5, 12-ish, you're down about 500 base, assuming that unidentified break 50-50.
3:48 But again, if you work and can break that a little, your direction, if you can spend some effort and some time and money on turning out these thousand voters in your hard supporter geo-tv universe.
4:03 I think this district is winnable. Okay, so if you were to design your ideal candidate in the lab, what are they doing in order to win this race and something that I think is really interesting for first-time candidates is what do they need to to get started?
4:22 So in terms of what kind of candidate I like to see here, you know, ideally, it's always ideal if the candidate is somebody who's run before or who is involved in you know, municipal government or is involved in one of the large voter organizations in the district.
4:41 If she has some sort of ties to the district, if that's not the case, then I want someone who can work.
4:47 Right, like I said, this is going to be lots of hours of door knocking and and lots of making those connections that you don't have.
4:56 The reason I want somebody who's connected is because then you already know voters and you cut that list down. But if you don't, you're going to be spending your entire summer in a little bit of the fall knocking on doors and that turns off a lot of candidates, so someone who's willing to work.
5:12 When it comes to the resources to get started here, I think a medium sized volunteer base, you know, even just five to ten people to help you make these calls to other volunteers to recruit a larger organization.
5:28 And then, you know, five to ten K of your own money put into the bank account really helps donors take you seriously.
5:37 With 20,000 voters with 15,000 doors it's gonna be a lot of donors. You know, there's just no substitute for a face-to-face conversation.
5:46 So to sum it up, right, I think it's a winnable district. It's fairly traditional as far as campaigns go, right, this is about what you'd expect to see.
5:56 There's a slightly smaller than average turnout and a slightly larger than I'd expect to see middle, but not hugely so.
6:08 actually I think that our example campaign calendar here is really well adapted to a race like this right where in the early stages you're building that organization because you're gonna need it to do the ID and persuasion and then ID and persuasion is gonna take the whole summer right when voters are
6:30 starting to get engaged about now until October when early voting starts and you just push out every ID supporter, every low propensity voter who you think is gonna support you.
6:45 And then you pray. And if you want to see one of these for your district, head on over to Bootstrap Office, scroll down and fill this out.
6:54 Ryan and I will get an email and we'll contact you super shortly. Super shortly. Yeah, check it out.