On Election Day, progressive candidates and causes are at the center of Illinois' Democratic primary ballot
CHICAGO — With the presidential nominations of Democratic incumbent Joe Biden and Republican challenger Donald Trump already assured, the focus of Tuesday’s primary election in Illinois moves to down-ballot contests that could represent a defining moment in the steady advance of the Chicago area’s progressive movement.
Slotted across the ballot are races and issues that will provide an indication of where the movement stands nearly a year after its most significant gain, the election of Brandon Johnson as Chicago’s mayor, and after one of its most prominent leaders, criminal justice reform-seeking Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, announced she would not seek reelection.
Though neither is on the ballot, Johnson’s early unsteady tenure at City Hall and the aftermath of Foxx’s embattled time as top prosecutor provide the backdrop for a Democratic primary asking voters whether progressivism has gone too far or not far enough amid continued concern about crime and the complex issue of dealing with migrants primarily sent from the Texas border.
“It’s been kind of a tumultuous time with the migrant issue and, as we’ve seen in cities across the country, (there's been) pushback on some of the more progressive ideas about prosecution,” said David Axelrod, political strategist for former President Barack Obama. “It will be interesting to see where public sentiment is right now and if it has changed a little bit to the right of where it stood.”
Across the country there have been shifts in once-progressive conclaves. Dissatisfaction with rising crime in San Francisco found voters there recalling their local prosecutor, Chesa Boudin, in 2022, three years after he’d run on an aggressively progressive platform. Other conservative efforts to rein
