CHICAGO (CN) — In Illinois, with primary elections a little over two weeks away, Democrats and Republicans are struggling with their own internecine conflicts as they prepare for election night on June 28.
Three contests in particular — for the 1st, 6th and 15th Congressional Districts — demonstrate how much the parties are wrestling with themselves as much as each other.
In the first, retiring incumbent Bobby Rush’s seat is being fought over by more than 20 candidates, most of them Democrats looking to realize their vision for the party in one of the country’s most solidly blue arenas.
The sixth district race pits the progressive Marie Newman against the more moderate Sean Casten, while a handful of local Republican politicians are hoping to upset south Chicagoland’s Democratic status quo.
And in the rural 15th Congressional District, found beyond Chicago’s extended political borders, both Republican candidates have claimed Trump’s support. But some observers wonder if the Trump-aligned wing of the GOP is capable of wielding power as successfully as the Republican old guard did.
“It is … worth noting that all three races illustrate the ideological divisions within and between parties,” said Robert Evans, a professor of business and political science at Illinois’ Rockford University.
This year’s particularly embattled primaries are a result of Illinois’ recent congressional redistricting. Following the 2020 census, Illinois learned it would be losing one of its 18 seats in Congress.
The Democrat-dominated state legislature cycled through a number of proposed maps for the new districts before settling on one that entirely eliminated the seat held by Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who chose not to run for reelection, and significantly altered the remaining 17 districts’ borders to benefit Democrats, who have regularly controlled 13 of the last decade’s 18 districts.
T\he new map could see the party picking up a seat — only three of the 17 new districts are solidly GOP.
“This will be the most gerrymandered map in the country,” Illinois state Representative Jeff Keicher, a Republican from Sycamore, said last October during the vote to confirm the new map.
But some Democrats are struggling with the new map as well, as the race for the new 6th Congressional District demonstrates. The primary pits current 3rd District Representative Marie Newman against fellow Democrat Sean Casten, the sitting representative of the current 6th District.
Both representatives’ districts will cease to exist in their current forms come November, with much of Casten’s current turf being rolled in to the new 3rd, 8th and 11th Congressional Districts. Newman will retain more of her territory, with much of the old 3rd will be incorporated into the new 6th.
“It’s an interesting dynamic, [Newman] running against another incumbent,” said Sibel Oktay, Director of the School of Politics and International Affairs at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
The pair are casualties of the Democrats’ political calculus, Evans said, as the party moves to secure the Latino vote in northern Illinois. Latino Illinoisans comprised about 19% of the state’s total population in 2020, and Evans said it was a smarter move to have two white representatives square off than to pit Newman against fellow progressive Jesús “Chuy” García, whose Latino-majority 4th Congressional District borders her own.
García will likely keep his seat in the new deep-blue Fourth District, as he is currently running unopposed in the district’s Democratic primary.
“In order to make room for a Latino district, something had to give,” Evans said. “They found room by shuffling Casten’s district.”
The contest between Casten and Newman is also indicative of the ideological split in the Democratic party. While Casten’s platform is fairly liberal — he calls for extensive police reform, improvements to the Affordable Care Act and protections of reproductive rights — Newman stands a good deal to his left.
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