The Friday before Election Day, I headed to the neighborhoods hugging Midway Airport with one question on my mind: What do the people in Mike Madigan’s legislative district think about Governor Bruce Rauner’s reelection campaign hinging on the demonization of their representative?
Inside, taped up on the shiny granite walls and partially obscured by plastic plants, were paper signs pointing to the office upstairs. Walking down a long, shadowy hallway hung with portraits of Lithuanian national heroes I finally came to a locked glass door marked by another inconspicuous piece of paper:
The museum was otherwise deserted, so I headed to a spot called Sammy’s Kitchen, right outside the northern walls of Midway. Shift workers and families filled the tiny diner, and at the bar a variety of current and former law enforcement officers offered political analysis.
That Election Day, I met David Krupa waving a Trump flag and a “Hillary for Prison” sign outside a polling place at 63rd and Monitor. He described himself as a “day-one Trump supporter,” 18, and a fan of the candidate’s law-and-order agenda. But last summer, I got a call from Krupa, who admitted that he’d lied to me about his age (because he thought it would be cool to be quoted in the newspaper) and let me know he was now running for 13th Ward alderman against Quinn. I caught up with him at his campaign office on Tuesday, just a couple of blocks east of where he’d been stumping for Trump.
