Rep. Sean Casten declares victory against GOP challenger Keith Pekau as Democrats sweep Chicago congressional districts

Democratic U.S. Rep. Sean Casten declared victory late Tuesday after fending off Republican challenger Keith Pekau, the mayor of Orland Park, to win a third term in a Chicago-area contest that drew high-profile national attention and money as it tightened up in recent weeks.

With votes still being tallied but with 96% of precincts reporting in the 6th Congressional District, Casten was holding onto a lead with about 54% of the vote, compared with about 46% for Pekau, who conceded the race to Casten late Thursday.

Campaign appearances in recent days by President Joe Biden for Casten and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for Pekau showed that the race has become one of the key midterm fronts in the battle for control of the House for the next two years.

During his victory speech, Casten reflected on the sudden death from heart failure of his 17-year-old daughter, Gwen, in June.

“We weren’t the only family to face tragedy this year,” Casten said. “Lots of folks in this room, lots of folks in this community lost loved ones to COVID, physically lost loved ones. Lots of folks emotionally lost loved ones to political nihilism.”

He added: “This has also been a hard cycle for political reasons. The mainstream of the Republican Party is now trying to bend that arc of history backwards and away from justice. ... Part of why I feel so good to have won tonight is because I needed that reminder … that we are better than this.”

Pekau addressed supporters at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday, saying he he did not “see a path forward” for Illinois after the results of congressional and state races that he said will continue one-party rule.

“We ran a really good race, but in the end we couldn’t overcome what has happened in DuPage County and what’s happened in the state of Illinois,” Pekau said, adding he plans to continue to serve as Orland Park mayor and doesn’t have any plans for run for Congress again.

The 6th District was perhaps the most contentious of several Chicago-area contests for Congress on the ballot Tuesday that otherwise appeared to be swept by Democrats. That included Jonathan Jackson, son of noted civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, seemingly winning the historic African American 1st District, and state Rep. Delia Ramirez leading in her race to become to the first person elected in the 3rd District, newly drawn to acknowledge Illinois’ burgeoning Latino population.

Casten and Pekau have been casting the campaign in historic terms for months, since long before it started seeing big contributions from political action committees hoping to influence the outcome with massive late TV ad buys. The Republican-controlled Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC made a late push for Pekau, investing $1.8 million in Chicago TV ads targeting Casten, according to Politico. The Democratic-controlled House Majority PAC, meanwhile, invested $650,000 in ads backing Casten, according to the same Politico report.

“What’s at stake is our democracy,” Casten told the crowd at an event he set up Friday right down the hall from where McCarthy was campaigning for Pekau in an Oak Brook hotel. Abortion rights, climate change and gun regulation are on the line, Casten said.

Pekau, meanwhile, has been hammering his opponent over Democratic economic policies that he says have led to the inflation crisis that’s gripping the country.

Casten first won the seat in 2018, defeating six-term Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam. Before Roskam, much of the area was represented for more than 30 years by Republican Henry Hyde.

A Casten win in this election could set him up for the long term in the U.S. House, while a Pekau victory could indicate a swing back to Republican ascendance in the district. Following the 2020 census, Congressional and state legislative districts were redrawn and, in Illinois, Democrats held the power to redesign those maps and did so with an eye toward protecting as many seats as possible — including the 6th District.

While Biden won in the area that now covers the 6th District by 54.5% to 43.6% over former President Donald Trump in 2020, according to a Daily Kos analysis, the district includes neighborhoods on Chicago’s Southwest Side with large numbers of Republican voters such as Garfield Ridge, Beverly and Mount Greenwood.

The new 6th District also sweeps through nearby towns including Orland Park and Alsip, and up through the west suburbs, taking in all or parts of Burr Ridge, Darien, Elmhurst, Hickory Hills, Oakbrook Terrace, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Orland Hills, Western Springs, Willowbrook and Worth, and extending north to Villa Park and west to Downers Grove.

Interestingly, Casten’s margin of victory appeared to be wider in DuPage County than in Chicago or suburban Cook County, bucking the tradition of DuPage being a stronghold for the GOP, and despite the Democrats’ dominance across the board in Chicago and Cook County.

In the new 3rd District that extends from progressive Northwest Side Chicago neighborhoods to historically conservative towns in the far reaches of DuPage County, about 47.4% of the nearly 754,000 residents are Hispanic, according to the Illinois Democratic Party. There, Ramirez appeared to be pulling away from first-time candidate Justin Burau of suburban Winfield, the GOP challenger.

With 39% of precincts reporting, Ramirez had 80.5% of the vote to 19.5% for Burau, according to unofficial results.

Ramirez, a progressive with ties to liberal U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, said she’s trying to connect with more voters in moderate and conservative suburban towns after she beat moderate Northwest Side Ald. Gilbert Villegas in the Democratic primary.

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, Ramirez promises to have immigration reform at the top of her agenda in Washington, D.C.

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

Burau had said his underdog campaign gives him the freedom to depart from GOP orthodoxy in his campaign.

The South Side 1st District will also see a new representative, with U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush retiring after 30 years in the seat.

Jonathan Jackson appeared well on his way to becoming the ninth-straight Black representative of the heavily Democratic district, dating back to Oscar De Priest’s win in 1928.

De Priest was the first Black person elected to Congress in the 20th century and the first ever in the North, his victory marking a milestone in Black urban political power in Chicago and nationally.

The redrawn district, which threads from the South Loop through the South Side and deep into the south suburbs to the edge of Kankakee County, gives the 1st District the largest number of African American residents of the state’s 17 congressional seats.

Jackson was the overwhelming favorite in his first run for public office, in a district that’s 49.7% Black and where, according to Daily Kos, Biden defeated Trump 70.5% to 28.1%.

Jackson has argued he won’t “be a regular freshman congressperson” because of the relationships he’s developed with sitting House members while working around the country on voter drives for his father’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.

He said he wants to lay the groundwork to bring more high-tech manufacturing to the district as companies seek U.S. locations to build things like batteries and other components of electric cars. His Republican challenger was Eric Carlson.

With 54% of precincts reporting, Jackson had 79.3% of the vote to 20.7% for Carlson, according to unofficial results.

Three other local members of the U.S. House are poised to return.

Veteran U.S. Rep. Danny Davis was unopposed in the 7th District, which stretches from the west suburbs of Westchester, Bellwood and Oak Park through the city’s West Side and east to Lake Michigan, encompassing Streeterville and downtown, before darting south to include parts of the South Loop, Bridgeport and Englewood.

In the late June primary, Davis faced his stiffest challenge in years, when he defeated progressive Kina Collins 51.9% to 45.7%.

Davis got endorsed in the primary by Biden and other high-profile Democrats to fend off Collins, who said it was “time for a change.”

García, seeking a third term in a newly configured 4th Congressional District now centered around his Southwest Side base, was another incumbent Democrat who appeared to be cruising to an easy victory against Republican James Falakos and Ed Hershey of the Working Class Party.

With 77% of precincts reporting, García had 70.6% of the vote to 25.7% for Falakos and 3.7% for Hershey, according to unofficial results.

While García was the overwhelming favorite in Tuesday’s election, he may have a bigger political prize in mind. He took two steps last week toward announcing a run for Chicago mayor, amending his campaign committee to support a City Hall run and filing an economic disclosure statement.

Another South Side and south suburban lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of the 2nd District, appeared to be easily fending off a Republican challenge by Thomas Lynch.

With 57% of precincts reporting, Kelly had 78.6% of the vote to 21.4% for Lynch, according to unofficial results.

And in the 5th District, redrawn to stretch from downtown Chicago northwest to suburban Barrington, Rep. Michael Quigley was well ahead of Republican challenger and commercial real estate agent Tom Hanson in a rematch of 2020 and 2018, when Quigley won with more than 70% of the vote. Independent Jerico Matias Cruz was also on the 5th District ballot.

With 86% of precincts reporting, Quigley had 69.1% of the vote to 29.2% for Hanson and 1.7% for Cruz, according to unofficial results.