Special Issue: Christmas 2025 - Elections for the Holiday Season
Ho Ho Ho
Christmas is fast approaching! While I have a few articles in the works, with two likely to come out between Christmas and New Years, I wanted to use this time to offer some holiday-themed election reading. In previous years I have done articles looking at elections directly tied to the Holiday season. As my subscriber base grows each year, several of these previous year articles may be new to you. So feel free to take some time to review these more light heart election stories.
How did the ‘Home Alone’ Neighborhood vote?
Since 2020, I have been indulging in a fun Christmas article tradition that mixes the political analysis I am most known for with some holiday nostalgia. In 2020, as I watched the classic 1990 movie ‘Home Alone’ - I thought to myself, “how would these people vote?” Well there is an answer to that because the famous McCallister house - this massive mansion - is a real house located in a real town.
The McCallister House, which just sold for $5 MILLION last year, is located in upscale Winnetka Village, which sits just north of Chicago. The town, home to around 12,000 people, is…..
90% white
92% of population has a Bachelor degree
2nd richest town in Illinois
13th richest town in the nation
This town, like so much of suburbia across America, has transformed from a steadily Republican community into a firmly Democratic town. In my first Home Alone article, written for Christmas in 2020, I looked at the evolution of the community up until the Biden election win.
The article linked above breaks down the politics of the town from top to down ballot. At the time, Winnetka was still much more Republican at the local level, with Democrats either losing local races in the village or only narrowly winning. The town was firmly socially liberal, but still very economically conservative.
Then in 2022, I did a follow up to Winnetka after the midterm elections. This article can be found here. Here I discussed how Winnetka was continuing to trend to the left of the state of Illinois. In the 2022 midterms, Democrat JB Pritzker easily carried the town after losing it four years earlier.
That 2022 article delved into continued democratic gains with cabinet-level offices and with local races. There was a continued Democratic gain down-ticket, further cementing the town as a Democratic community. This was seen in the growing Democratic margins for races like Cook County Commission.
Then in 2024, I had another article on Winnetka, looking at how the district performed in 2024. There were two stories here. The first was that the city remained right around the same level of Democratic for President. Harris did not lose more than half a percent compared to Biden.
On the one hand this steady hold showed that the Democratic margins in many of the suburbs were not going to reverse so easily. However, the lack of Democratic growth in these areas, coupled with losses in working class communities, is how Trump was elected in 2024. The lack of a growth for Harris in Winnetka was actually a bad sign for the year.
In that article, I did show how Winnetka has firmly moved to the left of the state of Illinois. Once voting firmly to the right of the state, the town is clearly now a firm blue community.
I further looked at down-ticket races. A battle of ballot measures further cemented Winnetka as fiscally conservatives and socially liberal. The town rejected a progressive tax ballot measure while easily backing a measure for in-vitro fertilization. Similarly in my 2020 article I showed how Winnetka backed a pro-marijuana ballot measure as well.
Even further down-ticket Winnetka showed it was firmly liberal and Democratic. Democrats won across the town in local races. This included a special election for a water control board. This race saw Democrat Precious Brady-Davis, the county’s first Black Transgender official, easily win a full term to office and win the city by 6 points.
Down-ticket Democrats have continued to gain ground in the town, with LGBT candidates performing the same as all others. Additional Democrats running for other local posts secured around 53%, as I go over in my 2024 article.
The articles on Winnetka are simultaneously a look at the Home Alone neighborhood but as a look at shifting partisan trends in Americas suburbs.
I have another article you can check out for the holidays as well…..
Politics and a Miracle on 34th Street
Another fun holiday article I did looks at the classic movie - “A Miracle on 34th Street.” This movie of course likely generates images of the famous scene of mail carriers delivering letters to Santa at a courthouse. At the time, Santa was being accused of being insane, but the letters proved he was the “real Santa.”
My article dives into something that, as a kid, I easily glossed over. It was not just the letters that saved Santa, it was political calculation being made by the judge on the case.
This article dives into the scenes where the Judge in the case is berated by his campaign advisor, who is the one that implores him to find a way to resist locking the man up who claims he is Santa Claus.
The scenes with the campaign advisor, which I have linked in the original article, dive into the reasoning for why the judge cannot declare the mall Santa to be insane. Admitting their is no Santa is a politically disastrous decision for the Judge.
All right. You go back and tell them the New York State Supreme Court rules there's no Santa Claus. It's all over the papers. The kids read it and they don't hang up their stockings. Now, what happens to all the toys that are supposed to be in those stockings? Nobody buys them. The toy manufacturers are going to like that. So they have to lay off a lot of their employees... UNION employees. Now you got the C.I.O and the A.F. of L. against you; And they're gonna adore you for it. And they're gonna say it with votes.
The article concludes with the iron-clad fact that the true hero of a Miracle on 34th Street is the campaign advisor! As a campaign advisor myself, I appreciate that we are finally getting the respect we deserve.
See you all after the Christmas Holiday!