2020 Presidential Election

In the early days of the 2020 presidential election cycle, there were a lot of moving parts with at least ten democratic candidates and some announced republican challengers to the incumbent president. Although numerous venues exist with quality information on the election, FiveThirtyEight tends to stand out among the group with their polling overview beginning in June and evolving into more predictive modeling by the fall.

On the eve of the election, FiveThirtyEight had candidate Biden with a 90% chance of winning the presidency and Democrats with a 75% chance of taking back the U.S. Senate.

While the results of the election offcial certification, candidate Biden is considered the President-Elect and future control of the Senate will have to wait for two runoffs elections in Georgia the first week of January 2021.

"It’s the holy grail of presidential election campaigns: knowing which states will be decisive in the Electoral College. We have our guesses: States like Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin are widely expected to be among the top swing states for 2020."


By Nathaniel Rakich for FiveThirtyEight - June 17, 2020

Illinois-Centric Presidential News

The first presidential campaigns to ramp up staff in Illinois were for candidates Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren, and although candidate Joe Biden sealed the nomination by the Illinois primary, many notable names previously committed to other candidates were part of a reshuffling in the summer of 2020.

Initial senior staff for candidate Michael Bloomberg include:

  • Tom Bowen (senior adviser) - co-founder of New Chicago consulting; worked or consulted with more than 75 campaigns including President Barack Obama in 2008, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2011 campaign, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s 2019 campaign, and the now-ended 2020 presidential campaign of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee

  • Kara Highfill (state director) - State Treasurer Mike Frerichs’ office advocacy director for the division of unclaimed property; managed Treasurer Frerichs’ re-election campaign in 2018, and managed political campaigns at the state, county and local level since 2016

  • Julie Kaviar (communications director) - chief of staff to Cook County Commissioner Scott Britton; deputy press secretary to former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and worked in communications for former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s administration

  • Briana Collins (operations director) - Michael Bloomberg’s mayoral administration; executive director of the New York City Commission on Women’s Issues from 2006-2012

  • Joshua May (associate political director) - political director for U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Deerfield); staffer for Illinois state Rep. Bob Morgan (D-Deerfield)

Initial senior staff for candidate Elizabeth Warren include:

  • Stephen Campbell (state director) - political director of the Illinois Senate Democratic Victory Fund; graduate of Roosevelt University in Chicago and worked on Illinois Senate Democratic staff

  • Maggie Seppi (organizing director) - New Hampshire organizing director on the now-ended presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; deputy field director for the North Carolina Democratic Party

  • Jason Lee (community organizing director) - political director for United Working Families; adviser and field director for the Chicago Teachers Union

  • Tonantzin Carmona (political outreach director) - special assistant to the president of the Chicago Community Trust; chief of policy in the Chicago city clerk’s office

  • Emma LaBounty (training director) - organizer with the Chicago Metro Project of the American Federation of Teachers

  • Daniel Curtis (data director) - chief of staff for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Policy for the World Project

  • Erica Sagrans (mobilization director) - organizer and campaign strategist whose experience includes being campaign manager for state Rep. Will Guzzardi (D-Chicago)