Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch has said he thinks he can flip somewhere between four and six Republican-held House districts to Democratic control, upping his supermajority to between 82 and 84 seats, from his current 78.
Which Republican districts are flippable? I talked with a high-level source close to Welch’s caucus who pointed to the following races:
47th House District: Rep. Amy Grant, R-Wheaton, vs. Jackie Williamson. President Joe Biden won this district by 12 percentage points four years ago. Every statewide Democratic candidate won the district two years ago, and Gov. JB Pritzker won it by 8 points.
Grant’s campaign had just $13,542 in the bank at the end of June. She’s since reported raising a mere $10,000. Keep in mind that the House Democrats have a vast and ever-growing fundraising advantage over the House Republicans. So the money that these Republican incumbents have raised so far is much more important to understanding their predicaments. Grant is a strong abortion rights opponent.
52nd House District: Rep. Marty McLaughlin, R-Barrington Hills, vs. Maria Peterson. Peterson lost to then-Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie by just a few hundred votes two years ago. Biden won the 52nd by 6 points four years ago and all statewide Democratic candidates took it in 2022.
McLaughlin is personally wealthy, but he reported having just $100,000 on hand at the end of June and has reported raising $9,000 since then. He also has some labor support.
As with all of these districts, the Republican’s anti-abortion stances will play a major role in the Democrats’ campaigns.
114th House District: Rep. Kevin Schmidt, R-Cahokia Heights, vs. former Rep. LaToya Greenwood, D-East St. Louis. Greenwood’s 2022 loss to the Donald Trump-supporting Schmidt shocked the Black Caucus. Four years ago, Biden won the precincts in this redrawn district by more than 7 points. Before that, no statewide Democrat lost those precincts going back years. But the only statewide Dem who won the district in 2022 was U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth. The Republican Schmidt won it by almost 6 points.
The local NAACP and other Black leaders accused the House Democrats of taking too many Black precincts away from Greenwood during the remap and doling them out to neighboring white legislators. They ended up being right, at least as far as 2022 went.
The party line is that Greenwood lost because Black voters stayed home and Donald Trump voters surged to the polls. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, the House Dems believe, will bring their base voters out in November. We’ll see.
104th House District: Rep. Brandun Schweizer, R-Danville, vs. Jarrett Clem. Schweizer was appointed to replace Rep. Mike Marron. Biden won the 104th by almost 4 points, and four out of six statewide Democrats carried the district two years ago (Kwame Raoul and Alexi Giannoulias both lost by 2 points). This has usually been a pro-union, pro-Republican region, but the tide may be changing after the remap, and the Democrat Clem has strong union support.
Schweizer isn’t well-known, and the Democrats think they can use their superior financial firepower to define him at will. Schweizer ended the quarter with $15,000 in the bank and has raised $21,000 since.
79th House District: Rep. Jackie Haas, R-Bourbonnais, vs. Billy Morgan. Biden lost this district by a point, and most Democrats lost the district in 2022, including Pritzker by 6. Even so, the House Democrats think they can pull this off, partly because the district is pro-union.
Haas ended the quarter with $62,000 in the bank and has reported raising $9,000 since then.
82nd House District: Rep. Nicole La Ha Zwiercan, R-Homer Glen, vs. Suzanne Akhras. La Ha Zwiercan was appointed to replace former House Republican Leader Jim Durkin. Trump won the district by 2 points, and no statewide Democrats carried it in 2022. Darren Bailey beat Pritzker by 3 points.
48th House District: Rep. Jennifer Sanalitro, R-Hanover Park, vs. Maria Vesey. Biden won the district by 2.6 points, and all statewide Democrats except Treasurer Mike Frerichs carried the 48th two years ago. The Democrats didn’t unearth photos of Sanalitro at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” protests until very late in the game two years ago, so they’ll put that issue at the forefront of their campaign. Sanalitro insists that she wasn’t a protest participant. Sanalitro has been endorsed by the Illinois AFL-CIO, and the Workers’ Rights Amendment carried the district by 7 points two years ago.
Sanalitro ended the quarter with $69,000 and has reported raising $28,000 since then.
