“We’re gonna win,” Clem Balanoff told me in late February when I asked him how Bernie Sanders was doing in Illinois. Balanoff’s directing the Illinois campaign for Sanders, so it’s his duty to be optimistic, and I took his prediction with a grain of salt. Hillary Clinton was trouncing Sanders in the polls back then. And the previous time I’d spoken with Balanoff, he was directing Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s campaign for mayor. Balanoff had told me they were gonna win that one too.
Sanders’s surprise win in Michigan likely helped him build momentum here, Balanoff said. He also attributed the Vermont senator’s rise in Illinois to the campaign’s statewide organization, run through 43 offices. “We probably put together the best ground game in Illinois presidential primary history.”
