November 08, 2023
CONGRESSMEN GARCIA, DAVIS, BOST FACE TOUGH 2024 PRIMARIES
Try to wrap your brain around this. Sometimes losing now means winning later. Sometimes losing big now or underperforming expectations means never winning later. Most times losing while running for an office while holding another office means later losing. Sometimes a politician quits before losing. But most times losers just don’t get it, and they keep on losing.
Next March 19 an eclectic array of losers are running in three Illinois congressional districts – Darren Bailey (who lost for governor), Chuy Garcia (who lost twice for mayor), Kina Collins (who lost twice for Congress) and Raymond Lopez (who quit his failing bid for mayor).
4TH DISTRICT: Good timing is not one of Congressman Garcia’s (D) strong points. He got 43.8 percent in the 2015 mayoral runoff against Rahm Emanuel (D) and was perceived as a future mayor and Chicago’s first Latino mayor. “Chuy Chuy!” they chanted. But Garcia, now age 67, derailed himself by grabbing Luis Gutierrez’s open congressional seat in 2018. When Emanuel announced in mid-2018 that he wouldn’t run in 2019, Garcia was already committed. It was just too opportunistic to run for both offices and raise money concurrently.
In retrospect, there is little doubt that Garcia, with his demonstrable Latino and “progressive” bases, would have gotten at least 25 percent in the 2019 first round, prompting a runoff. Two of the 14 candidates were Latino, getting a total of 15.3 percent. The vote for Lightfoot/Preckwinkle/Daley was 17.5/16.1/14.8 percent. Garcia was popular with White liberals, and would surely have beaten any of those three.
In 2023, when Garcia did run, his time had passed. In a field of nine Garcia finished fourth with just 77,222 votes, or 13.7 percent, behind Vallas/Johnson/Lightfoot. Those “I’m Chuy Garcia. You know me” spots did not help. The pro-Garcia liberals of 2015 had evolved into the pro-Johnson woke progressives of 2023. That loss mightily diminished his luster. He is being challenged on March 19 by Alderman Ray Lopez (15th), who briefly ran for mayor in 2022 as a law-and-order candidate. He got some face-time on FOX blasting Lightfoot. He recently went berserk on the City Council floor trying to get a resolution passed that would ask voters on whether Chicago should remain a “sanctuary city.” As if that’s going to make a difference.
Lopez folded his mayoral bid, and ran for re-election, having raised few dollars. As of June 30 he had filed no report while Garcia had $71,705 on-hand. That’s not impressive. Lopez thinks Garcia has gone too Leftist. He has a point. The 4th Congressional District is 66.5 percent Latino, mostly Mexican-American, and 23.4 percent White. It takes in working-class areas like Brighton Park, Pilsen, New City, South Lawndale and Bridgeport, plus suburban Berwyn, Cicero, Burbank, Northlake and Melrose, and Hinsdale and Elmhurst in DuPage.
Outlook: Lopez only wins if he goes relentlessly negative on Chuy’s straying ideology. He must prove to be a better fit. And he will need over $500,000. Chuy is an institution among his base. Lopez is unknown. Chuy wins 60/40.
Garcia has some other rays of sunshine. He was alderman 1986-93, state senator 1993-99, county commissioner 2011-18 and congressman 2019-present. That’s four pensions, three of which he can draw at any time, and he’s earning $174,000 now. “Public service” has its rewards. “I’m Chuy Garcia. You know me.” Bull.
7TH DISTRICT: Congressman Danny Davis (D), age 82, is a teacher by profession who fortuitously latched-on to a succession of elective public payroll jobs spanning 44 years. They include Chicago alderman (1979-90), county commissioner (1990-96) and U.S. Representative since 1996. Not to be outdone by Garcia, Davis has five pensions – federal, county, city, CTU and USPS. But, as they say, he ain’t going nowhere. 28 years is not enough. Davis is seeking a 15th term in 2024. The Chicago Way, baby.
But, as they also say, the Old Black mare ain’t what he used to be. Davis nearly lost in 2022 to the under-funded, underdog Kira Collins, a self-described “activist.” The vote was 35,366-31,054, a margin of 4,312, or 52/46. In 2020 Davis beat Collins 72,930-16,393, or 61/14. Davis’s vote halved and Collins’ doubled. Davis is clearly on a rapid fade.
Collins is running again, as is Chicago treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, wife of 28th Ward Alderman Jason Ervin. That fractures Davis’s residual party base. The 7th is 45.2 percent Black and 29.3 percent White. The nexus of power has shifted to the east (Loop, near West Side) and west (Oak Park, Maywood). Collins has been endorsed by four “democratic socialist” aldermen and her Woke/Leftism will sell to the Whites in Oak Park.
Outlook: Davis had $143,076, Conyears-Ervin $240,732 and Collins zero. But her base will prevail. Collins will win with 42 percent.
12TH DISTRICT: The hapless Darren Bailey (R) distinguished himself with an undistinguished campaign for governor in 2022, losing to J.B. Pritzker (D) 2,253,748-1,739,093, a margin of 514,653 votes, getting just 42.4 percent. He had Trump’s endorsement against Pritzker, which helped him to a 72.4 percent win in the Downstate 12th District, which Trump won 56-41 in 2020 and 55-40 in 2016.
It takes in 31 Downstate counties south of Springfield, including Carbondale, Belleville, Mt. Vernon and East St. Louis, all now heavily Republican, filled with vast farmland acreage and 87 percent White. It’s sort of like the state of West Indiana or East Iowa. The incumbent is Mike Bost (R), a firefighter from Murphysboro elected in 2014. He now chairs the Veterans Committee. Bost won with 72 percent in 2022 and will be tough to beat.
A July 5 Cor Strategies poll had Bost up 43-37, not good numbers for an incumbent. Bost had $923,659 on-hand, Bailey zero. Outlook: Bailey wins only if Trump endorses him, and beating Bost, an establishment Republican, is not a Trump 2024 priority. Bost wins 52-48.
9TH DISTRICT: This north Lakefront/North Shore district which extends from the Lakefront to Wauconda, is crammed with pent-up demand for congresswoman Jan Schakowsky’s (D-9) seat, which won’t be open until 2026 at the earliest. Schakowsky, age 79, of Evanston, is one of ex-speaker Nancy Pelosi’s inner-circle.
Others in that crowd include Californians Zoe Lofgren (D-18), age 75, of San Jose, and Anna Eshoo (D-16), age 80, of Palo Alto, and Connecticut’s Rosa DeLauro (D-3), age 80, of New Haven. Pelosi is age 83 and gave up her leadership this year after Republicans won the House in 2022. All, including Schakowsky, are running for re-election in 2024. And all are well past their prime, as is their contemporary, 80-year old Joe Biden. Did that movie “80 for Brady” do well? Oh yeah, $40 million.
Schakowsky was elected in 1998, topping both state Senator Howie Carroll and a young Pritzker in the primary (D) with 45.2 percent. She has never really had a primary and beat Republicans with 70-percent-plus. Up until the 1990s the 9th was Illinois’ “Jewish seat,” concentrated along the north Lakefront from the Gold Coast to Rogers Park and west to Lincoln Square and Bowmanville. Its congressman was the venerable Sidney Yates, an icon in the Chicago Jewish community who served 48 of the 50 years between 1948 and 1998.
The 1991 remap added Evanston, Niles, Skokie, Morton Grove, Glenview, Lincolnwood and Wilmette. Schakowsky, who is Jewish, won in 1998 because she got 70 percent in her Evanston base and Carroll only 50 percent in his 50th Ward base. Pritzker was the spoiler. Later remaps ran the 9th out to Park Ridge and Des Plaines, and the 2021 remap extended it out to Barrington, Buffalo Grove, Vernon Hills, Cary and Wauconda, and up to Northfield.
It also kept five Chicago wards – the 50th (West Rogers Park), 49th (Rogers Park), 48th (Edgewater), 46th (Uptown) and 47th (Lincoln Square). Schakowsky got 71 percent in 2022.
The congresswoman is 4th-ranking Democrat on the powerful Energy/Commerce Committee and chaired the Innovation, Data subcommittee. She can raise whatever money she needs. But if Republicans keep the House, she may decide along with her pals to bail in 2026. And there will be no dearth of wannabe successors: Evanston mayor Dan Biss, who ran for governor in 2018; county commissioner Josina Morita, of Skokie; state Senator Laura Fine (D-9), of Glenview; Des Plaines mayor Andrew Goczkowski, a Schakowsky staffer; Alderman Matt Martin (47th) and Alderwoman Angela Clay (46th); and maybe Alderwoman Debra Silversten (50th).
In a 5-6 candidate field, the winner needs just 25 percent. That means either Biss, who will surely get Schakowsky’s endorsement and money connections, or Clay, a “democratic socialist” Woke/Leftist. If Trump is president in 2026, it will be Clay.
Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com
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