Oak Park and River Forest favored progressive candidate Kina Collins in the March 17’s 7th Congressional District primary election.
Collins finished behind State Rep. La Shawn Ford, Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin and union organizer Anthony Driver in the Democratic primary for the U.S. House seat held by Danny Davis for the last three decades. But Collins, an anti-gun violence activist and self-identified Democratic Socialist, was the top vote getter in both Oak Park and River Forest.
Ford, who received Davis’ endorsement early on in the process, carried just under 24% of the total vote to win the primary, with Conyears-Ervin pulling just over 20%, Driver winning 11.3% and Collins winning 9.4%, according to the Associated Press.
At her election night party in Oak Park, Collins said a progressive candidate could’ve won the seat had there not multiple progressives in the primary race, splintering the vote among left-leaning Democrats.
She said bringing ranked choice voting to Illinois would also be necessary for progressive candidates to succeed in the district.
“As we are tallying up the votes, we’re seeing that progressives could have won had we consolidated,” Collins said, flanked by family on the stage at Comedy Plex in Oak Park. “I’m very clear-eyed on what our next journey is about the fight for ranked choice voting, because it’s literally about the viability of this district.”
Oak Park saw stronger turnout in the congressional primary than its next-door neighbor, with just over 25% of registered voters in River Forest casting ballots in the 7th district race compared to 36.8% in Oak Park. In total, 15,547 people cast ballots in the race in Oak Park while 2,185 voted in River Forest.
The local referendum asking Oak Parkers to allow the Park District of Oak Park to sell $40 million in bonds to pay for a new indoor pool actually drew more votes in Oak Park than the congressional primary did, according to Cook County election records. The tax hike proposal, which voters struck down by a more than three to one margin, had by far the biggest turnout of any suburban referendum this week as 16,390 Oak Parkers voted on the issue.
The two villages’ voters represented about 18.5% of the total turnout in the 7th District election, based on turnout figures from the AP.
The 7th district stretches from the West Cook suburbs to Downtown Chicago, picking up large sections of Chicago’s West Side and South Side along the way. The 7th district’s Democratic primary is the de facto decider for the seat, as a Republican has not won the dark blue district since the 1940s.
Collins received 22.6% of the Oak Park vote and just over 18% of the vote in River Forest. Ford finished second in Oak Park with 16.3% of the village’s vote while Jason Friedman finished just behind Collins in River Forest with 16.89% of the village’s vote.
Conyears-Ervin had significantly out spent Ford, Driver and Collins on the campaign trail. Her $620,821 in receipts reported to the Federal Elections Commission last month outpaced Ford by more than $135,000, exceeded Driver by nearly $400,000 and dwarfed Collins’ total by more than 11 to one, according to FEC records.
Those totals don’t include the more than $5 million in interest group ad buys Conyears-Ervin reportedly benefited from.