AVONDALE — As next week’s election heats up and candidates make their last-minute pitches to voters, one tactic in a competitive race is frustrating Northwest Side neighbors: an unusually high volume of mailers.
Campaign mailers from candidates for the 20th state Senate District are inundating neighbors, trash cans and alleys, with many complaining that state Sen. Natalie Toro has sent more than her opponents and candidates in other races.
Neighbors told Block Club and shared on social media that Toro’s campaign has filled their mailboxes and doors with so many mailers and door-hangers that some are afraid to check their mailboxes.
While incessant mailers close to election time is usually par for the course, several neighbors have said it’s gone too far. The topic has become a talking point in the hotly contested race.
“November is when it started, and it was way too early for that,” said Avondale resident Ashlee Van Schyndel. “It was incessant then, [and] I can only think of a handful of times … where a week went by where I didn’t get anything. It’s constant.”
Christopher Martin-Givens, who lives near Kilbourn Park, is also fed up with the amount of mailers coming to his mailbox and doorstep, especially given their environmental impact.
“It drives me insane. … And it’s annoying in the sense of insulting people that all it takes to win is to inundate people with the most annoying marketing,” Martin-Givens said.
Toro, a former CPS teacher, is seeking reelection to the state senate seat. She faces Graciela Guzman, a Chicago Teachers Union organizer; Dave Nayak, physician and farmer; and Geary Yonker, a longtime neighborhood organizer, in Tuesday’s primary election.
The 20th district covers portions of Logan Square, Avondale, Irving Park, Albany Park, Belmont Cragin and Portage Park.
Mailers As A Campaign Issue
Some neighbors estimate they have received at least five mailers a week from Toro’s campaign in recent weeks. They’ve also received letters and mailers purportedly from Nayak’s supporters and about one mailer per week from Guzman. Others noted that they have received more mail from Guzman than Toro, and virtually none from Yonker.
The race for one of the most progressive Democratic seats in the state is a hotly contested one with millions of dollars in backing. Toro, who was appointed to the seat last year, has raised about $2.4 million for her campaign, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections, far surpassing her opponents.
Guzman has raised over $648,822, Nayak has raised just over $902,550 and Yonker has received over $24,232 in donations, according to state filings.
Toro’s campaign has sent nearly 30 different mailers, according to a code on the flyers and neighbors who counted the postcards they received. Guzman’s campaign has sent 12 pieces of mail, a campaign spokesperson said. These totals do not include supportive mailers from allies for both candidates.
Representatives with Toro’s election campaign defended their decision to send such a volume of mailers, saying that although she is the incumbent, Toro is “not your typical politician” and might not be well known to voters.
“A year ago, she was in the kindergarten classroom at Goethe Elementary teaching and is not someone voters are familiar with,” a campaign spokesperson said in a statement to Block Club. “In a crowded media market like Chicago, direct mail is one of multiple ways our campaign has reached out to voters to introduce them to Senator Toro.”
Campaign officials recommend people frustrated with the flyers recycle them.
Nayak’s campaign has even made the volume of mailers a campaign issue, saying in his own mailer to voters that his opponents are engaged in “juvenile communications that have become all too common in modern political campaigns.”
“As you may have noticed, I did not fill your mailboxes with glossy mailers and cheap slogans,” Nayak wrote in a letter to voters shared on social media.
Caitlin Brady, campaign manager for Guzman’s campaign, said their main voter contact has been through volunteer outreach.
“We are proud to have more than 400 volunteers as part of this campaign who have knocked on more than 25,000 doors in the district,” Brady said in a statement. “We believe grassroots campaigning is far more persuasive than big money mailers or ads.”
Martin-Givens, Van Schyndel and other neighbors who spoke about the Toro flyer annoyances are voting for Guzman or Yonker, in part because of the volume of mailers, they said.
“It makes me pretty angry that we spend this much money on electoral races for as long as it has been going on,” Van Schyndel said.
Omari, a Logan Square resident who didn’t want his last name published, has received the same amount of mail from all candidates and plans to vote for Toro. He used to work with her at Goethe Elementary and appreciates her perspectives on affordable housing and her teaching background.
“Being a teacher helps in having a holistic view in how you support households and neighborhoods [and] in dealing with the community,” Omari said.
‘We’re Persuading Them’
With a large sum of money involved in the race, some neighbors wonder if the funds could have been better spent elsewhere. But campaign and political science experts say targeted mail is still an effective way to drive awareness and name recognition. And if a candidate has the money, it’s a reliable manner of outreach.
Mailers generate buzz, particularly so in an election featuring big spending, said Alisa Kaplan, executive director for Reform for Illinois, a nonpartisan research and political advocacy organization.
“Candidates will try to reach voters any way they can, and especially in a media environment [where] there are not a lot of reliable options,” Kaplan said. “There’s only a handful of things you can spend money on, and mailers is one of those things. Yeah, a lot of people put them in the trash … but especially for older people, [who] tend to be more reliable” voters.
Dave Seman, a political campaign consultant who runs Paladin Political and has worked on local and national campaigns using direct mail and digital media, said that even though neighbors are feeling overwhelmed with Toro mailer ads, frequency is key to boosting her platform.
“The mailer perspective is, we’re definitely persuading them and giving the voter an argument, but we are asking for their vote,” Seman said. “To the people who are offended that we asked them too many times for their vote … they probably weren’t our voters in the first place. This is a race where you have a millionaire, a lobbyist and a teacher — they’re going make that conversation as prevalent as they possibly can.”
Such volume of mailers comes with the territory of a high-spending and highly competitive race, both experts said.
“What all this spending shows is it’s exceptionally competitive for any primary in Illinois, but particularly for an incumbent,” Kaplan said. “When you have a competitive race with backers, you will get the money.”
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