-By Warner Todd Huston
Here are a few of the results of last night’s primary race in Chicago and the surrounding areas. Unfortunately, for a city of millions, less than 30,000 dragged themselves to the polls to vote. Even more to Chicago’s shame, there are only just over a million people even registered to vote in a city of just under three million citizens!
Anyway, results can be found at the Chicago Board of Elections for the city and for the suburbs at Cook County Clerk’s Office.
First Congressional District
Donald E. Peloquin will face Democrat Bobby Rush (incumbent)
Second Congressional District
Brian Woodworth will face Democrat Jesse L. Jackson, Jr. (incumbent)
Third Congressional District
Richard Grabowski will face Daniel William Lipinski (incumbent)
Republicans did not put up a candidate in the Fourth District, Luis Gutierrez will continue in the Fourth
Fifth Congressional District
Dan Schmitt will face Democrat Mike Quigley (incumbent)
Republicans did not put up a candidate in the Seventh District, Danny Davis will continue in the Seventh
Eighth Congressional District
Joe Walsh (incumbent) will face Democrat Tammy Duckworth
Ninth Congressional District
Timothy C Wolfe will face Democrat Janice D. Schakowsky (incumbent)
Tenth Congressional District
Bob Dold (incumbent) will face Democrat Brad Schneider
Eleventh Congressional District
Judy Biggert (incumbent) will face Democrat Bill Foster
Other Congressional Seats
As to the other Congressional races, the big fight was between Don Manzullo and Adam Kinzinger for the reconfigured 16th District. Kinzinger beat long-time incumbent Manzullo and will be taking the nomination (and likely the Nov. election) for the 16th District.
As to the other GOP Congressmen, none of them lost their primary and all will go on to November.
State Senate Races
In the race for the Chicago area State Senate Districts, the GOP didn’t even bother fielding candidates in many of them. Sadly in the 1st through the 17th Districts (except the 9th) the GOP failed to even bother fielding a candidate. But for those that did have a GOP candidate, these are the results:
- Marc Levine, 9th District
- Barbara Ruth Bellar, 18th District
- Carole Pankau, 23rd District
- Kirk W. Dillard, 24th District
- Jim Oberweis, 25th District
- Dan Duffy, 26th District
- Matt Murphy, 27th District
- Jim O’Donnell, 28th District
- Arie Friedman, 29th District
- Don Castella, 30th District
- Christine Radogno, 41st District
We talked a bit about the 24th District with insurgent Chris Nybo trying to unseat Kirk Dillard. Didn’t work for Mr. Nybo. Not even close.
Also of note, perennial candidate Jim Oberweis finally won an election. He just became the nominee for a fairly safe GOP seat in the 25th District.
State Representative Races
In the race for State Rep seats, once again the Chicago GOP didn’t bother with candidates for many of them. But here are the Republicans that were on the ballot and won their primary:
- Vincent William Romano, 16th District
- Kyle Frank, 17th District
- Michael P. McAuliffe, 20th District
- Robert Handzik, 22nd District
- Steven Williams, 35th District
- Renée Kosel, 37th District
- Antoinette ”Toni” Puccio-Johnson, 40th District
- Ramiro Juarez, 44th District
- Dennis M. Reboletti, 45th District
- Patricia R. ”Patti” Bellock, 47th District
- Mike Fortner, 49th District
- Ed Sullivan, Jr., 51st District
- David McSweeney, 52nd District
- David Harris 53rd District
- Tom Morrison, 54th District
- John R. Lawso, 56th District
- Jonathan L. Greenberg, 57th District
- Lauren G. Turelli, 58th District
- Sidney H. Mathias, 59th District
- Angelo ”Skip” Saviano, 77th District
- Jim Durkin, 82nd District
We focused a lot on the race between incumbent Kent Gaffney, Tea Party candidate Danielle Rowe and conservative insurgent David McSweeney in the 52nd District. McSweeney pulled it out, unseating incumbent Gaffney who is an appointee to that seat and is a close associate of House GOP Leader Tom Cross.
Cook County Board of Review
Sean M. Morrison seems to have lost pretty convincingly to incumbent Dan Patlak for the First District seat. Let’s assume that Morrison won’t take a third run at Patlak’s seat after this, eh?
We focused on the 42nd Ward here committeeman’s race on the site. So, here are the results:
42nd Ward Committeeman
Eloise Gerson wins reelection with Tom Smithburg just over 300 votes shy of unseating her. William Kelly was a more distant third place and played the spoiler for Smithburg.
For all the Ward Committeemen, check the Chicago Board of Elections website.
Other Races
One other race that we focused on at this blog was the Kane County Board Chairman race. Chris Lauzen seems to have won that one.
Karen McConnaughay won her 33rd Senate District race.
Unfortunately, our friend Lennie Jarratt lost his bid for the 31st District Senate seat. Establishment candidate Joe Neal won the nomination in that four-way race.
And…
As to a hot button Democrat race, we hoped against hope that young Michele Piszczor could beat Democrat powerhouse and Speaker of the House of Reps Michael Madigan in the 22nd District, but no luck.
Piszczor told a far left website that Madigan cheated. “If I lost fair and square, OK. The fact that you cheated to get to where you’re at, no, you didn’t win,” she said.
Madigan won handily, though. Still, Piszczor is calling for an investigation due to irregularities she says occurred. Good luck with that, Michelle.
Finally, not that we need to tell the results here, Romney ran away with it in Illinois. Santorum came in second, with Paul then Gingrich coming after. Interestingly, over 5,000 voters still voted for Rick Perry and he even beat Buddy Roemer.
Warner – just keeping it real here. In the 42nd ward race, Kelly was the first one in the race to declare he was running against Eloise because he wanted to begin to build a real Chicago GOP. Despite all of Smithburg’s advantages in the race – having his father buy him endorsements from Edgar and Thompson, Pat and Bill Brady, etc. – even though he had no republican record – the margin between Bill Kelly and Smithburg was a sorry 27 votes – so saying Kelly came in a distant third and was the spoiler is really inaccurate. The so-called Illinois GOP leadership has egg on their races because they couldn’t – even to please a wealthy donor who gives thousands of dollars to Democrats like Rahm – pull off a “paid” win in 42nd for Smithburg. 42nd ward voters were just too smart for them. No Illinois conservative or Republican should be involved in “buying endorsements” – and this was probably the most egregious case I’ve seen.