With early voting underway for the primary election on June 28, we wanted to remind you of the progressive champions our members endorsed in the 2022 Democratic Primary.
Each of these candidates went through a thorough endorsement process with our membership across the state and emerged as the clear choice for the candidate who will best advance our progressive policy solutions and who will work with us to build a government that serves the interests of the many instead of the few. We are proud to endorse Litesa Wallace for Congress (CD-17, central & NW IL), Sen. Mike Simmons for state senate (SD-7, Chicago) and Hoan Huynh for state representative. (HD13, Chicago)
Each of these candidates’ personal stories and experiences as people of color who grew up in low-income or working-class communities, with connections to the immigrant and refugee communities, resonated with our membership’s own experiences. They have a vision and hunger for using the tools of government to make sure everyone has a roof over their head, access to health care, and a plan to address the climate crisis by making the economy work for Black, brown and low-income communities. We know best how to make our communities thrive. When people who share our stories and experiences govern with us, everyone will be taken care of.
Every vote will make a difference in these primary races. Let us know we can count on you to vote for the candidates we endorsed by filling out this form.
If you’re sick and tired of the status quo and would like to make a difference, join us! We have roughly 1500 members in each of these districts who are eligible to vote. Help us contact our members to make sure they vote for our endorsed candidates:
- In Chicago, to help us support Sen. Mike Simmons and Hoan Huynh fill out this form: https://bit.ly/opc4hoan
- In Bloomington, Rockford, Galesburg, Peoria and other cities in Central and NW IL, to help us support Litesa Wallace for congress, email da**************@gm***.com to find out when the upcoming phone banks are.
Each of us taking a few hours of time to contact fellow voters and community members and voting is exactly how we will build the power we need for a world that better reflects our values.
A bit more on each of our endorsed candidates:
- Rep. Litesa Wallace was born and raised in Illinois and grew up in a union household as the daughter of a postal worker and police officer. She was the first in her family to earn a college diploma and was a single mom as a graduate student who eventually earned a PhD in educational psychology. She has been a state representative in the General Assembly since 2014 and has won re-election twice. On climate, racial equity and jobs, Rep. Wallace believes, like OPC, that we can address all three issues simultaneously. We can build out a new green economy with renewable energy and energy efficiency jobs and we can lead that effort making sure that people who have been left out of previous economic booms are prioritized for both training and jobs.
- Sen. Mike Simmons is the first openly gay Senator in IL and the first Black senator to represent our district. He was raised on Chicago’s far north side by a single mother in scattered site public housing. His father was a refugee from Ethiopia. Both of his parents were small business owners with deep roots in the community. He is fighting hard in Springfield to make sure that working parents have the supports they need so their families can thrive; modernizing our mental health care system so that young people have the resources they need; and making sure everyone has access to health insurance regardless of employment or immigration status.
- Hoan Huynh (pronounced Hahn Win) is a community leader whose family came to the U.S. as Vietnamese refugees. His mom experienced homelessness in Vietnam and worked 14-hours a day in a factory in the US. His father was a veteran and experienced mental illness. Hoan is deeply grounded in the challenges facing immigrant and other communities of color and has worked tirelessly to fight to expand opportunity for those who need it most. He has seen first hand how government and social support systems made it possible for his family to succeed and wants to expand those opportunities for everyone. If elected, his priorities will be increasing affordable housing and renter protections, and stopping displacement from the district; increasing benefits for working families (like paid family leave) and supporting small businesses; and building a new, green economy to address climate change and decades of disinvestment in Black, brown and working class communities.
Let us know we can count on you to vote for these candidates!