Illinois U.S. Senate- Race of the Day

77 Days Until Election Day

Illinois U.S. Senate

Status: Democrat Incumbent

2020 Presidential Result: Blue State (Midwest)

Outlook: Safe Democrat

It sure seems like our last couple of Senate races here in Illinois have not gotten the attention that those races here used to. Of course, it is hard for any Republican to win statewide in Illinois, but the primaries at least used to be big deals. That is not the case though for the last two Democrat incumbents seeking reelection, including this year. The Senate contest will get a fraction of the media coverage the Gubernatorial race does, although the result may or may not be somewhat tighter. My hunch is that the result will be a bit wider than the Governor spread.

This will be the first all female Senate election in the Land of Lincoln. Incumbent Tammy Duckworth is seeking a second term. She has one of the more noteworthy backgrounds of anyone in politics today. She has claimed that her father's family has served in the U.S. Armed Forces going back to the days of the Revolution. Duckworth's mother is from Thailand, where the Senator was born in 1968, and is one of two Asian-Americans in the U.S. Senate. She was apparently seriously considered to be Joe Biden's running mate for Vice President in 2020, and Duckworth very much wanted the job. It is said the Biden campaign was reluctant of Donald Trump claiming she would ineligible because of her birth, despite the fact that she was a U.S. citizen at birth due to her father. 

The political appeal of Duckworth has much to do with her heroic military service. As an Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot, she was shot down over Iraq in 2004. The war injuries would cost her both legs and also seriously wounded her right arm. As a double amputee veteran, she came to the attention of Democrat politicians in Illinois while she was recovering. She quickly became a Congressional candidate running on an anti-war message in 2006 but lost a competitive race to an incumbent in what was an historically Republican but shifting district in the Chicago suburbs.

After serving in the Veterans' Affairs Department, but in Illinois and the federal government, not without some controversy in the former, Duckworth ran again for Congress in 2012, after Democrat controlled redistricting drew a constituency that was heavily Asian-American and seen as designed specifically for her. She had a 10 point victory over bombastic GOP freshman Congressman Joe Walsh, then a Tea Party darling (now a virulently anti-Trump commentator who says he is no longer a Republican.)

By 2016, Duckworth was ready to run statewide and had broad party support in a run against freshman Republican Senator Mark Kirk, whom before going to the Senate had also won many competitive House races in a similar district to the one Duckworth then held. Known as one of the more moderate Republicans in Congress, often to the consternation of conservatives in the state, Kirk had been a political survivor and narrowly defeated a flawed Democrat opponent to win an open Senate seat in 2010.

In 2012 though, at just 52, the hard charging Kirk suffered a massive stroke and nearly died. He would be absent from Capitol Hill for nearly a year. His return saw him with significant physical limitations and altered speech. Kirk also started making gaffes and statements that made others uncomfortable (though he was not totally immune to this before his stroke) and there was speculation that he just not the same person. Running for reelection, Kirk broke publicly with Donald Trump, whom he had never been comfortable leading the party, leading some conservatives to write off supporting the incumbent. His race against Duckworth was a contest in which both nominees most frequently used wheelchairs to get around. The Democrat was also not known for being a compelling speaker, but the political nature of the state favored her, and Kirk, already the underdog made a comment in a debate that came across as racially insensitive towards Duckworth. She won 55-40. Duckworth, who had become a first time mother at age 46, had her second child four years later in 2018, becoming the first sitting U.S. Senator to give birth.

Duckworth's voting record in Congress has been very liberal but her war heroism has helped blunt much of the criticism that might otherwise be directed towards her. She definitely has enjoyed partisan sparring and infamously referred to Donald Trump, a former military school student, who avoided military service due to alleged injured as "Cadet Bone Spurs." Trump had seemed to struggle to find an effective way to go after Duckworth, not even assigning her a nasty nickname.

Seeking a second Senate term in 2022, Duckworth was unopposed in her party, and no major Republican came forward to oppose her. A collection of far right activists and Q-Anon adherents who had virtually no name recognition made up the field. For a time, a Senate contest against a very weak Republican field looked like the only possible political option for anti-Trump Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger, but even if he emerged in the primary, Duckworth's political strength and his own unpopularity with much of the Republican base would have made a general election victory close to impossible.

Somewhat late in the process, as a slate of statewide candidates was being put together by the state's richest man, the Senate slot seemed like an afterthought, but some establishment figures did convince attorney Kathy Salvi to enter the field. In many ways, the political marriage between a Salvi and the GOP establishment is hard to reconcile. Way back in 1996, Salvi's husband, then State Representative Al Salvi, won a huge primary upset as a conservative firebrand outsider to become the Republican U.S. Senate nominee. The general election did not go well for him and he lost handily in an open race, while Republicans like me bemoaned what could have happened if the then Lt. Governor had not lost the primary. Al Salvi would also be nominated for Secretary of State in 1998 but lost as well, in an outcome that did not displease the GOP Old Guard. 

The extended Salvis are a prominent legal family in Lake County Illinois and Kathy ran for Congress in 2006 but lost a Republican primary. In recent years, they had not been heard from much in terms of political campaigns. It was thus a bit of a surprise when Kathy Salvi attempted a political comeback for Senate seat, 26 years after her husband had been the party's candidate, and even more so that she was seen as the only "mainstream hope" to avoid embarrassment for the party in a general election. 

I even voted for Salvi in the primary a couple of months ago. Her campaign did not receive much coverage and she was not all that vocal of a candidate, but had some name recognition on her side and was leading in polls, although there were a huge swath of undecided voters. It appeared possible that the Republican nomination could go to someone like conspiracy theorist Bobby Piton or Peggy Hubbard, an African-American former police officer, and second time Senate candidate in as many cycles, who was running as an avowed MAGA adherent. I had no illusions that Salvi would win in November, but I thought voting to nominate her would yield the least insane outcome. After all, her opponents were calling her a RINO and saying that she was not sufficiently pro-Trump. During the primary, Salvi said her children had worked in some capacity for Trump or his campaign. A nephew, Alex Salvi, has been a host on the pro-Trump OAN Network.

In what turned out to be a too close for comfort result for many, Salvi finished first, beating Hubbard by a 30-25 margin. Matt Dubiel, a radio station executive, also running as purely pro-Trump finished third with 13 percent. In the wake of the primary, Hubbard cried fraud and said that the voting and the counting had been rigged to give Salvi the victory. Other candidates, such as Piton, who finished in fifth place with nine percent joined in saying that Salvi was an illegitimate nominee and most of the collections of also-rans banded together to try to protest the result, but to no avail of course.

With the general election underway, this race is still not getting any attention and it is unlikely there will be any tv ads airing (there were none at all in the primary in the Chicago market) until right before Election Day. I did happen to see a Zoom-like interview that Kathy Salvi gave to a local Chicago news program and suffice to say, she came across as every bit as right-wing as her husband was back in the 1990s, and probably more so. She tried her best to dodge a question about whether she would support any exceptions for abortion such as rape, but it was clear she would not. She used many other conservative talking points during the interview, but in the biggest disappointment to me, said the U.S. had no business sending money to Ukraine and called for cutting off aid. I was left somewhat dumbfounded that this was the candidate I had voted for in the primary, as one of only a couple whom had won.

So, while I will not be voting this November for the very liberal and partisan Tammy Duckworth, who will of course win easily, this Ukraine position of Salvi has all but certainly cost her my vote as well. A decade ago, I had volunteered for (albeit with some mixed feelings) and voted for Joe Walsh over Tammy Duckworth in my Congressional district. Perhaps, I will write him in for Senate this November. I think he will probably be voting for his former opponent.

 

U.S. Senate races predicted thus far:

7 D (4 Safe, 2 Leans, 1 Tossup)

5 R (3 Safe, 1 Likely, 1 Leans)

Total with predictions thus far:

43 D (36 Holdover, 4 Safe, 2 Leans, 1 Tossup) 

34 R (29 Holdover, 3 Safe. 1 Likely, 1 Leans)