A recently appointed state representative backed by Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot conceded Wednesday morning to a first-time candidate backed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker in a lakefront Illinois House district race that was one of the marquee contests in the Democratic primary elections for the General Assembly.
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With all precincts reporting Wednesday, unofficial results showed Margaret Croke — Pritzker’s candidate — leading with 46% of the vote to 41% for the mayor’s choice, Rep. Jonathan “Yoni” Pizer, who was appointed in February. The Associated Press declared Croke the nominee over Pizer and three other candidates vying for the seat formerly held by state Sen. Sara Feigenholtz.
In addition to thanking her supporters, Croke thanked Pizer and his team “for running a great campaign.”
“I have tremendous respect for him and the issues he raised,” Croke said in a statement. “I look forward to working with him and representing every member of the district.”
Pizer congratulated Croke and said he intends to work with her to make sure the district “receives the representation we need and deserve.”
“I was humbled and honored to be appointed the first-ever openly gay representative of the 12th District, which includes the historically LGBTQ community of Boystown,” Pizer said. A spokesman said Pizer plans to serve out the remainder of the appointed term.
The race was one of 29 House seats that had contested primaries. Eight state Senate seats had contested primaries.
In many districts in and around Chicago, winning the Democratic primary is tantamount to victory in the fall general election.
One major responsibility for the class of lawmakers taking office next January will be redrawing legislative district boundaries, a partisan exercise that Democrats have used to create supermajorities in the House and Senate.
House Democrats, led by state party chairman Michael Madigan, the nation’s longest-serving speaker, hold a record 74-44 seat edge over House Republican leader Jim Durkin’s caucus, which hopes to make inroads this fall. In the Senate, Democrats hold a 40-19 majority.
The 12th House District race with Pizer and Croke was one of several competitive primary contests created by the midterm departures of more than a dozen legislators since January 2019.
Pizer, 55, a former liaison to the LGBT community for U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, had the support Feigenholtz, who moved to the Senate this year following the surprise departure of Democratic Senate President John Cullerton.
Pritzker gave the the maximum $57,800 from his political fund to help Croke, 28, his former campaign staffer who now holds a $90,000-a-year job as deputy chief of staff at the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
In a closely watched race on the Northwest Side, Democratic Rep. Luis Arroyo gave up his 3rd District seat in November following a federal bribery charge.
With 95% of precincts reporting Wednesday afternoon, Democratic Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado, an attorney backed by Lightfoot, had 52% of votes with challenger Nidia Carranza at 48%, unofficial results show. Carranza is a teacher supported by the Chicago Teachers Union, one of Lightfoot’s chief antagonists. As of Wednesday afternoon, AP had not declared a nominee, and neither campaign responded immediately to requests for comment.
Late Tuesday, Delgado said it was premature to call the race and that she was “waiting to see how the rest of the results roll in.”
“I’m confident in the campaign we ran,” Delgado said. “We ran a clean campaign based on integrity and truth, and I’m hoping that resonated with voters.”
Democratic Party leaders in the district appointed Delgado, former Peoples Gas chief of staff, to the seat, but Durkin and Naperville Democratic Rep. Anne Stava-Murray filed formal challenges to the appointment. Arroyo, who has pleaded not guilty, remains 36th Ward Democratic committeeman, and while he didn’t formally participate in Delgado’s selection, his share of the weighted vote was used to give her the job.
Madigan has convened a special committee to investigate the legitimacy of the appointment. The committee is unlikely to come up with a decision for weeks, but the timing of events set up the unusual possibility that the House could boot her from her seat for the rest of the current term while she remained on the November ballot.
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Another appointed incumbent, Democratic Rep. Yehiel “Mark” Kalish of Chicago, was trailing in his bid to keep the seat he assumed in early 2019 following the abrupt retirement of longtime Skokie Rep. Lou Lang.
With all precincts reporting, gun-safety activist Denyse Wang Stoneback had 43% of the vote to 32% for Kalish and 25% for political operative Kevin Olickal, according to unofficial results. The AP declared Stoneback, 50, of Skokie, the nominee.
Kalish, 44, an ordained rabbi and former business owner, set off a barrage of criticism last spring when he voted “present” on the Reproductive Health Act, a major piece of abortion rights legislation that had the backing of many Illinois Democrats.
Stoneback declared victory about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday. “It was a very competitive race, and I think it brought a lot of civic engagement to the 16th District, which I think is fabulous because we haven’t had a competitive race in a long time,” she said.
Going into the night, the biggest question in the 9th House District was whether the territory that stretches from North Lawndale to the Near North Side would no longer be represented by a member of the Turner family.
That question appeared to be answered fairly quickly, with Lakesia Collins, a nursing home organizer for the politically potent Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois, declaring victory over Aaron Turner — the brother of the current officeholder, Rep. Art Turner, and son of Art Turner’s predecessor. Five other candidates also vied for the seat. Collins, whom the AP declared the nominee Wednesday, said she was “humbled to be decisively selected by residents of the 9th House District.”
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Aaron Turner conceded, saying the “people have spoken” and he respected the voice of the voters.
With 95% of precincts reporting, Collins led with 46% of the vote, according to unofficial results. Turner had 15%.
On the Far Northwest Side, Democratic Rep. Lindsey LaPointe of Chicago has been representing the 19th House District since July, when she was appointed to the seat that Sen. Robert Martwick left to join the Senate.
Backed by Pritzker and Lightfoot, LaPointe was up against Chicago Democrats Joe Duplechin, a Chicago police officer, and Patti Vasquez, a popular former WGN Radio host and comedian who appeared on ballots as Patricia D. Bonnin “Patti Vasquez.”
With all precincts reporting, LaPointe led with 41% of the vote, Vasquez had 34% and Duplechin trailed with 25%. AP declared LaPointe the nominee.
The coronavirus cut off what LaPointe called the “bread and butter” of campaigning — door-to-door contacts — but she said she was able to pivot to other methods of contact.
“My whole team feels really positive about the work we put into this campaign, and we needed every vote,” LaPointe said. “We needed every conversation.”
With 98% precincts reporting in the city’s 1st state Senate District on Wednesday, AP declared longtime Sen. Antonio “Tony” Munoz the nominee with 62% of the vote over Froylan “Froy” Jimenez, a Chicago Public Schools teacher and former state Senate staffer for U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who lost his seat in 1998 to Munoz.
Correction: A previous version incorrectly said Illinois Senate District 1 candidate Froylan “Froy” Jimenez was endorsed by U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. Garcia did not endorse Jimenez, a spokeswoman for the congressman said.