Here are the Tribune Editorial Board’s endorsements in all six of the contested primary races for Illinois Senate.
19th
The 19th District is in the southwest corner of the Chicago metro area and includes all or part of Country Club Hills, Frankfort, Hazel Crest, Homewood, Joliet, Lockport, Matteson, New Lenox, Oak Forest, Orland Park, Tinley Park and others. The Republican primary is being waged between Hillary Mattsey Kurzawa, Samantha Jean Gasca and Max Solomon.
Gasca is a faith-based conservative who is affiliated with the Moody Bible Institute and has far-right views. “We should close up shop, meaning, shut down our borders, reopen privatized immigrant detention centers, and reverse/repeal legislations enacted by Bruce Rauner and J.B. Pritzker,” she told us. Solomon has run in many different contests previously, including for governor and also previously as a Democrat. He’s an attorney in private practice who has thrived despite losing his Nigerian immigrant parents at a very young age.
The candidate we think will best serve Republican voters, and the only one likely to be competitive in the election this fall, is Kurzawa, a Frankfort Township trustee who tells us she is energized by law and order issues and also by improving the state’s economy. A former opera singer married to a Lemont police officer who acknowledges Joe Biden was elected president, she tells us that “we need to make Illinois a place where people want to live again, not leave, and it starts right here in SD19 to lower taxes, bring in more businesses and create good-paying jobs.”
Fair enough. Kurzawa is endorsed.
20th
In this intensely watched race on Chicago’s Northwest Side, incumbent Natalie Toro, a former kindergarten and third grade teacher with a Puerto Rican heritage, is locked in a tough battle with Graciela Guzmán, the daughter of immigrants from El Salvador and an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union (currently on leave).
Guzmán is backed by many of the same activists who helped elect Mayor Brandon Johnson. Toro has had only a brief incumbency; she was appointed by Democratic insiders as a replacement for Cristina Pacione-Zayas, who resigned in May to serve as deputy chief of staff to Johnson. Also in the race: Dr. Dave Nayak and Geary Yonker.
“We are facing a cost of living crisis as a whole in Illinois,” Guzmán told us, “especially when we look at rising health care costs and the cost of housing; the 20th District is not immune, and I hear from community members daily desperately trying to balance their needs and checkbook. Increasing health care access has been my life’s work for over a decade and I plan to continue to make that my priority in the Senate.” Guzmán says she also would fight for a progressive income tax in Illinois.
Toro, a lifelong resident of her district, is a compelling candidate, and she is well liked by statewide Democrats.
“Once a predominantly Latino, working-class area, my district has undergone significant gentrification over the years,” she told us. “It is heartbreaking to witness long-term residents and lower-income families being displaced due to escalating housing costs.” She also said that she supports a ban on outside employment or consulting for elected officials. “The corruption that we have seen,” she said, “has come from elected officials putting their personal interests in private businesses ahead of the public trust.” And her ideas on law enforcement are in line with our views: “Public safety is a multifaceted issue,” she told us, “and I support both investing in preventing the root causes of crime while also making sure law enforcement has the resources they need, particularly when it comes to solving crimes and increasing our clearance rate.”
Toro is not supported by the Chicago Teachers Union, despite having been a teacher. The union is backing Guzmán, its activist, which Toro understandably finds frustrating as a longtime member, she told us.
Nayak is a loquacious and passionate candidate who tells us that, as a lung physician, he is the candidate best placed to know the health care needs of those in his district. More generally, he describes himself as a straight shooter and also told us that “the community knows I am the most qualified.” He told us he is “deeply disappointed” at some of the “racist” attacks on his candidacy coming from both his rivals and state Democrats. “I’m the only candidate who has not gone negative,” he said.
“We are the only campaign that is focusing on the real needs of real people,” says podcast consultant and self-described “activist” Yonker, who says he has an “action plan for working families with the goal of building more affordable housing, controlling property taxes, reducing the costs of child care, fighting for lower grocery bills, and restoring public safety.”
Noble aims with which to hit Springfield, for sure.
But Toro is endorsed.
37th
The 37th District is in north and central Illinois and includes all or parts of Lee, Bureau, Henry, DeKalb, Ogle, Rock Island, Whiteside, Stark, Peoria, Woodford and Marshall counties. It has been represented by Republican Win Stoller, who is not seeking relection.
Candidates here include Li Arellano Jr., a businessman, veteran and the former mayor of Dixon who is to the right of his party (he skirted over our question about the 2020 election) but is widely admired for having turned the finances of that city around following the fraudulent machinations of former comptroller Rita Crundwell; Tim Yager, a businessman and sixth-generation farmer, who says he’s a solutions-oriented guy who will focus on the needs of his constituents, whether Republican or Democrat; and Chris Bishop, a corporate agriculture representative who coaches wrestling at Dixon High School and is the youthful outsider in this race. Bishop excites some statewide Republicans.
Arellano, a Latino, told us that “overregulation is killing small business. More and more mandates are laid onto employers, and it is often the small businesses that cannot afford the money or time it takes to properly enact these mandates. As a small business owner myself for 15 years (I opened my first restaurant at age 26), I have experienced this personally.”
“I don’t think the Safe-T Act is working very well,” Bishop told us. “It is causing budget issues in rural communities, and our judicial system is being overwhelmed trying to keep up. I would support legislation that would fund transitional services, mentoring, and job training for young offenders.” However, Bishop did not answer our question as to whether Joe Biden was rightfully elected in 2020, which is disappointing.
Although Bishop is regarded as a name to watch for the future, the Republican establishment mostly has coalesced around Yager as a moderate, hard-working candidate who is best positioned to carry on Stoller’s legacy in this district.
Yager is endorsed.
40th
On the Democratic side of the ticket in this district, which covers the southern reaches of Cook County as well as part of Grundy, Kankakee and Will counties, the incumbent Patrick Joyce, a farmer from Reddick, has a primary contest with Kimberly Earling, who is running to left of Joyce.
The general view among pragmatic Democrats is that Joyce is the best match for a district that would otherwise be vulnerable to Republicans, and we like what Joyce has to say on a number of issues. He says the most pressing issue in his district is property taxes. “I have sponsored and passed legislation to help offset high taxes in the Southland. I continue to advocate for increased funding for education, which is the largest portion of our property tax bill.” Joyce also said he is “in favor of any ethics reform conversation that improves citizen confidence.”
We are always glad to hear that. Joyce is endorsed.
53rd
The 53rd District, which includes parts of 13 counties, including McLean, Peoria and Tazewell, features a four-way primary battle. The candidates are Chris Balkema, a businessman from Grundy County, Susan Wynn Bence, a Eureka College graduate who says she was inspired by the college’s most famous alum President Ronald Reagan, Jesse Faber of Pontiac and Mike Kirkton of Gridley.
This is a solidly Republican district: Incumbent Tom Bennett announced his retirement in July.
Faber has support from the local farm bureau and the teachers union. He’s seen as a candidate highly involved with his community. Wynn Bence, an early backer of the legalization of hemp, says she has been “chief of staff for two state representatives, teacher, coach, community college administrator, adjunct faculty, family counselor and executive director of a rape crisis center.”
But Balkema, chair of the Grundy County Board for six years, has the support of most of the local business community and is regarded as a candidate with high principles. Many Illinois Republican watchers think he has the potential to be a highly effective legislator with useful experience at reaching across the aisle to get things done for the people of his district.
Balkema is endorsed.
58th
Sen. Terri Bryant is the well-regarded and hard-working incumbent (since 2021) in the 58th District, which includes all or parts of Jefferson, Perry, Randolph, St. Clair, Monroe, Jackson, Union and Washington counties. Bryant, chosen as assistant Republican leader for the Senate Republican caucus in 2023, has a primary challenger in outsider Wesley Kash of Scheller, an attorney and farmer who is running far to Bryant’s right. “The idea that when Donald Trump said to ‘peacefully protest’ he really meant mount an insurrection is a complete joke,” Kash told us.
There’s no contest here. Bryant is endorsed.
