Delia Ramirez wins Latino-leaning 3rd District for Democrats

Progressive state Rep. Delia Ramirez won handily over Justin Burau in the new Latino-leaning 3rd District that meanders from Chicago deep into DuPage County.

The 3rd District extends from progressive Northwest Side Chicago neighborhoods to historically conservative towns in the far reaches of DuPage County.

A progressive with ties to liberal U.S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia of Chicago, Ramirez during the general election campaign said she was trying to connect with more voters in moderate and conservative suburban towns after she defeated moderate Northwest Side Ald. Gilbert Villegas, 36th, in the Democratic primary.

Though the district includes many suburbs that historically have tilted Republican, most of the votes in the election were still expected to come from Democratic-majority Chicago neighborhoods and nearby suburbs.

Ramirez is the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants and wife of a man who arrived from Guatemala as an undocumented immigrant and has been living in Chicago under the auspices of the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

If elected, Ramirez said she’d have immigration reform at the top of her agenda in Washington, D.C. About 47.4% of the 3rd District’s nearly 754,000 residents are Hispanic, according to the Illinois Democratic Party.

Biden won the precincts of the 3rd District in 2020 with 69.7% of the vote, to 28.3% for Trump, according to Daily Kos.

Burau, of suburban Winfield, ran in the general election as the long-shot Republican in the race. A first-time political candidate and vice president of operations for a mortgage company, he said his underdog campaign gave him the freedom to depart from GOP orthodoxy, to support ideas like finding a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients.