Democratic U.S. Reps. Lauren Underwood and Bill Foster declared victory in their congressional elections Tuesday — but Underwood’s challenger was not conceding the close race.
While incumbents held big leads in several other campaigns in Chicago’s suburbs, two outlying districts with newcomers on both sides had races that remained tight late into the night.
With control of Congress up for grabs in a polarized nation, the contests for the U.S. House in Chicago’s suburbs and downstate Illinois were being closely watched nationwide.
Though Democrats drew new district boundaries to favor their party following the 2020 census, candidates took nothing for granted heading into the final days of the campaign.
Democrats went into the election holding 220 House seats to 212 for Republicans. Elections in the middle of a presidential term typically favor the party out of power, especially in times of inflation and low favorability ratings for the president, in this case, Joe Biden.
In one of the most closely watched races in the state, Biden flew to the Chicago area this past weekend to campaign on behalf of Democratic incumbents including Rep. Lauren Underwood, who faced a challenge from Republican Scott Gryder, the Kendall County Board chairman, in the 14th District.
Late Tuesday, Underwood declared victory at her campaign party in Plainfield.
“Tomorrow, I’m gonna wake up and I’m gonna get to work,” she told supporters. “Will you be ready to join me?”
Underwood said campaigning in a newly districted area was a challenge, but she enjoyed being welcomed into homes, farms, backyards, and schools. “It was an incredible opportunity to connect with people given how serious of a time we are in.”
With 92% of the vote in, Underwood led with 54% to 46% for Gryder. All totals being reported Tuesday were unofficial. It would be Underwood’s third term. But Gryder did not concede.
“We’re not going anywhere for a while,” Gryder said at a campaign party in Oswego. “We’re excited about where we’re at.”
Gryder said his campaign will continue to watch the votes come in, saying it was still a very close race.
Gryder said no matter the outcome, this is only the beginning.
“At the end of the day if we lost, we lost,” he said. “We’ll pick up and we’ll move on to the next fight. There’s always another election.”
Gryder had promised a “pro-growth, pro-family, pro-freedom” agenda. Underwood called for lowering health care costs, fighting inflation and acting on climate change.
The 14th had covered the western suburbs from Joliet north to the Wisconsin border, but the remap shifted the boundaries from Joliet west to DeKalb, Ottawa and Peru, where more rural areas typically vote more Republican.
One of the most closely contested races was in the new 17th District, which covers the northwest corner of the state, from Rockford west to the Mississippi River and the Quad Cities, then running south to Peoria and Bloomington.
The 17th featured two newcomers trying to succeed Rep. Cheri Bustos. Fellow Democrat Eric Sorensen, a TV weather forecaster, faced off against Republican Esther Joy King, a lawyer in the Army Reserve and daughter of missionaries, who has a private law practice in East Moline.
In a back-and-forth race, with 85% of the vote, Sorensen led with 51.7% to King’s 48.3%., according to unofficial results.
King outraised her opponent significantly in campaign money, as of Oct. 19, with $4.8 million in total receipts from 5,500 individual contributions, compared with Sorensen’s $2.6 million, federal records showed. She received contributions from political action committees connected to Republicans such as former President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, and House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy, as well as associations of auto dealers, insurance agents and corn growers, among others.
Her campaign called for lowering inflation, fewer taxes and tariffs, private health care insurance, jobs and economic growth. She’s against abortion rights, with exceptions, but opposes a federal ban.. King narrowly lost in 2020 to five-term Democratic incumbent Bustos, who is retiring.
Trump narrowly won the district in that election, but the Daily Kos reports that Biden would have won the newly drawn district 53% to 45%.
Sorensen who worked 22 years as a television meteorologist, said on his website that he had faced discrimination as a gay man previously living in the South.
He leaned into his weather forecaster background with a campaign slogan, “Forecasting a bright future for Illinois,” and calling for measures to fight climate change. He supports abortion rights, questioning whether the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade might also end same-sex marriage.
Sorensen also said he’s more focused on jobs in the blue collar district.
Slightly closer to Chicago, in the west and northwest suburbs and farmland, the 11th District pitted scientist and Democrat Rep. Bill Foster against Republican challenger Catalina Lauf.
Foster declared victory about 10 p.m. With 94% of the vote in, Foster led Lauf, 56% to 44%, according to unofficial results.
“It feels like coming home,” Foster said, commenting on a victory in a newly redrawn district. He added that he’s been “encouraged by the warm welcome” he received in northern parts of the 11th District, which includes portions of traditionally Republican-leaning McHenry County.
Lauf, a former Trump appointee to the Commerce Department, campaigned on common Republican themes of fighting inflation, crime and illegal immigration, and criticized Foster’s support for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Foster said his background as a particle physicist was a unique advantage in Congress, and campaign commercials painted Lauf as a “MAGA extremist.”
The district was redrawn significantly from its current home in the southwest suburbs to run instead from Bolingbrook north to McHenry County and west nearly to Rockford.
Much of the district is new to Foster and more rural, but Daily Kos calculated that voters in this new district would have gone 57% for Biden and 42% for Trump, a decided Democratic advantage.
In the North Shore’s 10th District, Democratic Rep. Brad Schneider portrayed himself as a moderate willing to work with anyone, as he tried to fend off a challenge by businessman Joseph Severino.
With 15% of the expected vote counted, unofficial results showed Schneider with 67% to 33% for Severino.
Severino had been head of his own business before filing for reorganization bankruptcy. He took a moderate stance for a Republican on abortion, saying he opposed it but would not set any bans on it.
Downstate, in the new 13th District, which runs from Champaign southwest through Springfield to East St. Louis, Republican Regan Deering faced off against Democrat Nikki Budzinski. Both candidates emphasized issues that affect voters’ wallets in the moderate district.
With 35% of the expected vote counted, unofficial results showed Budzinski with 53% to 47% for Deering.
Budzinski has worked as a labor union advocate for firefighters, food service employees and other workers. She’s also worked as a senior adviser to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on labor issues and as the chief of staff for Biden’s office of management and budget, which helped devise his administration’s coronavirus relief plan.
Deering, 46, is the granddaughter of a business executive with the Archer Daniels Midland food processing company and chaired the Decatur Public Schools Foundation. She was endorsed by the Illinois Farm Bureau.
Budzinski said voters in her swing district are most concerned about their pocketbooks, having a good job and affordable health care.
Several seats in Chicago’s suburbs were considered safer bets for the Democrats.
Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi faced Republican Chris Dargis in the 8th District, which, unlike other districts, was left largely intact in the remap, staying in the northwest suburbs, including Schaumburg and Elgin.
With 84% of the vote in, Krishnamoorthi had 56% to 44% for Dargis.
Dargis is a retired Navy officer who once studied in Russia, and worked as an executive in retail. He called for energy independence, lowering inflation and funding law enforcement to lower crime.
Krishnamoorthi claimed victory while calling on all candidates to “denounce violence and bigotry” and “focus on what we share in common as Americans.”
“Whatever side you’re on in this election, those on the other side are not your enemy,” he continued. “We are all Americans, and we must work together on behalf of a better and stronger nation.”
Krishnamoorthi pledged to defend the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance for millions of people and combat climate change, and, as the son of legal immigrants, called for comprehensive immigration reform.
In the 9th District, Rep. Jan Schakowsky had held the office since 1998, after serving eight years in the Illinois General Assembly. She faces Republican Max Rice, an energy consultant and stand-up comic who was unopposed in this year’s primary. The new district has been stretched in a thin band from Evanston to McHenry County.
With 72% of the vote in, Schakowsky led with 74% to Rice’s 26%, and was declared the winner by AP.
In rural areas, the remap has concentrated many Republican voters into two districts. In the southern tip of the state, the 12th District features incumbent Republican, small business owner and former Marine Mike Bost, who’s held office since 2014, against Democratic challenger, Navy veteran and former union president Homer “Chip” Markel.
With 27% of the vote in, Bost led with 74% to 26% for Markel according to unofficial results.
The most Republican district in the state is the 15th, which was created by combining parts of the 13th and 15th districts in central Illinois, after Illinois lost one congressional seat due to declining population.
With Trump’s endorsement, Rep. Mary Miller, who took office in 2020, defeated 13th District Republican incumbent Rodney Davis in the primary. In the general election she faced Democrat and commodity broker Paul Lange.
With 31% of the vote in, Miller led with 71% to 29% for Lange, according to unofficial results, and was declared the winner by AP.
In the redrawn 16th District, where Rep. Adam Kinzinger is stepping down, Republican Rep. Darin LaHood, who had represented the now-eliminated 18th District, faced Democrat Elizabeth Haderlein, executive director for The Land Conservancy of McHenry County.
With 11% of the vote in, LaHood led with 60% to Haderlein’s 40%, according to unofficial results.
The district runs from the Wisconsin border, down the middle of the state to near Bloomington. LaHood, a former prosecutor, was favored to win the heavily Republican area.