The 5th District, a Democratic stronghold, is a contest between the 67-year-old Democrat Mike Quigley, an incumbent of some 17 years standing and also now a candidate for mayor of Chicago, and 72-year-old Republican Tommy Hanson, a small business owner in the realm of commercial real estate.
This board first endorsed Quigley in his initial 2009 special primary election to succeed none other than Rahm Emanuel, lauding Quigley’s prior record as both fiscally competent and a voice of reason on the Cook County Board. We’ve endorsed him several times since then, and recently have been having a lot of lively conversations with him in regard to the mayoral race, wherein he seems fully engaged.
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More to come there, obviously. We specifically asked Quigley Friday about the double-dipping conflict and he said it was a fair question, but argued that far-apart filing deadlines “make the situation tough” and that there are “a lot of governors and senators also running for president,” which is true. “I am asking for people’s votes for Congress,” he said. (He will also be asking for Chicagoans’ vote in the mayoral race.)
We did not endorse Hanson in the Republican primary. Indeed, we did not endorse any candidate in that race since we judged none of them credible, although Hanson, for the record, was the best of the group.
Since then, Hanson has told us that “tariffs are a good thing,” a notion with which we do not agree. He also said he would be “asking every member to sign a pledge to reduce the deficit, pay down debt and save existing programs and affirm committing to the pledge, or they resign,” which strikes us as tortured logic. He also supports abolishing the federal income tax, which is impractical, at least as far as our eyes can see. We did appreciate Hanson’s comments on creating a business-friendly environment, reining in government fraud and abuse, and his interest in sustainability.
It seems to us that given his length and quality of service, Quigley is entitled to hedge his mayoral bets with his current job and appropriately time his exit to best serve the district.
Mike Quigley is endorsed.
Read all of the Tribune Editorial Board’s endorsements for the 2026 Illinois general election here.
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