In a hotly contested March 19 primary election race, incumbent Tara Stamps decidedly kept her seat on the Cook County Board of Commissioners, pushing out Democratic challenger Zerlina Smith-Members.
Stamps earned nearly 85% of the vote to Smith-Members’ 15%, with 87% of votes counted Wednesday.
Stamps, backed by Democratic political powerhouses such as County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, raised $206,429.83 since 2019, election records show. Unions were among her biggest supporters. Smith-Members largely self-financed her campaign with more than $160,000, as of the last filing.
Stamps, who took over the seat held by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, will remain in office until 2026. She once mentored Johnson during his early years teaching at Jenner Elementary Academy of the Arts. Stamps now works for the Chicago Teachers Union, and was appointed to the board to replace her former teacher after he was elected mayor in 2023. Smith-Members was a finalist for filling the seat.
“We need more people who actually understand what’s going on in the community because they are from the communities,” Smith-Members said.
Both Stamps and Smith-Members live in Austin.
Stamps did not return calls for comment by time of publication.
Smith-Members said she’s asking for an investigation into the results. She said she feels the lack of protection for voters, such as not requiring identification, leads to skewed results.
“We’ve allowed individuals for far too long to manipulate our systems, our communities,” Smith-Members said. “It’s just time to do what we need to do to make sure that every vote actually counts.”
The 1st District, where Stamps was elected, covers part of the West Side of Chicago, including Austin, and surrounding suburbs, including Oak Park and Forest Park. According to WBEZ, Stamps and Smith-Members know each other personally; Stamps even said she was a guest at her opponent’s wedding.
Stamps said publicly said that she wants to support legislation similar to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Bring Chicago Home, a measure intended to generate funding to address homelessness in Chicago, but that appeared to be headed for defeat Wednesday in an embarrassment to Johnson.
“It’s time that we started asking the rich to do their fair share,” Stamps said in a WBEZ article. “It’s past time.”
Smith-Members said she believes officials representing the western suburbs, who support an initiative like Bring Chicago Home, might support money going into Oak Park or other more affluent neighborhoods instead of the places that need it most. Austin and the West Side have not been developed for a long time, Smith-Members said.
“My campaign was a tax freeze and a forensic audit,” she said. “To make sure everyone was equally, fairly paying their share when it came to living in the 1st District and across the Cook County area.”
Stamps also said she wants to have more programming for incarcerated youth, according to WBEZ.
The Cook County Board of Commissioners is composed of 17 commissioners who serve four-year terms. The elected officials manage federal and state requirements and run county affairs.
James Humay also ran as a libertarian.