* My weekly syndicated newspaper column…

You’ve probably read about the Republican Party’s implosion last week in suburban municipal and township campaigns, particularly in DuPage County.

It’s important to remember these consolidated elections are not always a reliable indication of the future. They’re very low turnout, and in years like this one — when the election was held during a hugely controversial U.S. president’s first 100 days — they can be influenced by the outrage of the moment, particularly when one political party was putting its finger on the scale, as the Democratic Party of Illinois was.

The state party supported 280 local candidates, and it claims 222 of those candidates won, for a 79% success rate. Former state Rep. Jeanne Ives, a member of the Illinois Republican Party’s state central committee, described her party’s losses as a “complete wipeout.”

President Donald Trump’s impact on the contests is undeniable. But a lot of hard work was put in at the state and local levels. The DuPage Democrats won all of their contested township races, much of it due to strong grassroots work and decent candidate recruitment.

But there’s another aspect to this: Vote by mail, particularly the state’s permanent vote by mail program.

Illinoisans have been able to sign up for permanent vote by mail status for about four years now. You fill out a simple form and then your local election authority sends you a ballot before every election.

Former state Rep. Mark Batinick told me before the election that when the statute took effect, 2025 was “the election I feared the most.”

The Republican’s reasoning was simple. This was the first off-year election for permanent vote by mail after years of compiling participants. As noted above, these elections have notoriously low turnout. But Democrats have far more trust in mailed-in ballots than Republicans, so they’re much more likely to sign up for the permanent VBM program.

The most important part of permanent VBM is the ballots are a major reminder to voters that it’s time to vote again. They may tune out the news or the ads, but that official mailer from their county clerk will likely catch their attention. A lot of vote by mail is just regular voters shifting from one voting method to another, but the permanent program adds an important dynamic to that.

In close races, that could be the difference between winning and losing.

“Some Democratic victories will undoubtedly be attributed to Trump backlash,” Batinick said before the election. But that vote by mail system, particularly the permanent VBM program, would still play a big role, he predicted.

And he was right.

For example, on election night, the chief of staff for state Rep. Norma Hernandez, D-Melrose Park, Bobby Hernandez had a slight 14-vote lead over incumbent Addison Township Supervisor Dennis Reboletti.

The Republican Reboletti had a 212-vote lead among early voters and a 206-vote lead among voters who cast their ballots on Election Day itself.

But by that Friday, the Democrat Hernandez had a 775-vote lead among mailed-in ballots. His overall 357-vote overall lead is expected to increase as more mail trickles in.

The reason for the Republican aversion to voting by mail is Trump has long blasted it as a way for Democrats to steal elections. He and party leaders reversed course before the 2024 election. The party did make some gains, but, at least in Illinois, they haven’t yet matched the Democrats’ superiority.

And now Trump has reversed course again, issuing an executive order that in part commands the U.S. attorney general to take “all necessary action” against states that count mailed-in ballots that arrive after federal election days. The U.S. Postal Service being what it is (and service may very well deteriorate even further going forward), that could disenfranchise a whole lot of voters.

A federal district court and an appellate court ruled against a lawsuit originally filed in 2023 by Illinois U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R- Murphysboro, attempting to stop the count of ballots received after midnight on election days, even if they’re postmarked by Election Day itself (identical to the rules for mailing income tax returns by deadline dates). Bost has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul is among several Democratic attorneys general across the country to join a lawsuit against Trump’s executive order. Their main argument: “The President has no constitutional authority to ‘make or alter’ laws governing federal elections.”

* Charts from Uncrewed…

One of the reasons Republicans held onto several of those seats this year was because no Democrats ran against them.

* Also, remember last week when Illinois Republican Party’s state central committeeperson Jeanne Ives said this about the results?…

I also do think that when it comes to anything that deals with education or mental health, people, unfortunately, are just willing to spend whatever it takes, and that’s not the answer, and they just for what they just do. They just vote for these people who vote for, oh, it’s for education, it’s for mental health.

Local issues are very important…

It may not have been the Wheeling Township Board’s stubborn refusal to fund a voter-approved Mental Health Board that cost Republicans the supervisor’s seat and their majority on Tuesday. The swelling blue tide is no longer a new political phenomenon in the suburbs.

But the township’s Republicans certainly didn’t do themselves or their party any favors by repeatedly refusing, even in the face of state law specifically pertaining to them, to fund a voter-approved Mental Health Board at the level voters approved. Now, cultural shift or no, they have felt the sting of openly defying the voters’ will.

Some of the Democrats on the slate that swept into control of the township board were active in support of the 2022 referendum that approved creation of a 708 Mental Health Board to oversee programs to help people with mental health issues, substance use disorders and developmental disabilities. Now, they’re in position not just to levy the full tax but also to move in new directions on other issues.