We’re so grateful for all the volunteers who put in their time and effort this election cycle, talking to voters about the need to elect candidates who will stand up against Trump and the billionaire class, fight to protect our communities from climate change, and work for real solutions for affordable housing, community safety, and public education. We reached out to over 8,000 voters to share our vision of a government that works for the people, trained new members in electoral organizing skills, ran phone banks in Spanish, Urdu, Tamil and English, and brought new people into our organization. Your hard work makes a difference. The good news is, in the districts where we worked, voters elected candidates who share our vision! Progressives prevailed on the far northside despite massive amounts of money spent by corporate interests to defeat them.
First of all, our endorsed candidate, Daniel Biss, won the Democratic primary election for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District. Mayor Biss is a proven progressive who will carry our demands to Washington, stand up to the billionaire class, work to dismantle ICE, fight for Medicare for All, and invest in housing, education and protecting our planet for future generations.
We also want to congratulate Sen. Mike Simmons, our other endorsee, for the strong finish he made in that same race for congress, despite being massively outspent. We are grateful to him for his courage and leadership. We’re glad he’s still our state senator and can’t wait to get back to work with him this session in Springfield to advance our agenda at the state level.
In the Illinois 13th House District race, we worked hard for Sunjay Kumar. Unfortunately, things didn’t go our way. The good news is that Demi Palecek, who won, shares our progressive values, and many of the same lived experiences of many our members. We met with her during our endorsement process and she is 100% aligned with our platform and priorities. Thank you to Sunjay for his tireless work these past 9 months. Running for office is brave, vulnerable and exhausting. No doubt, his presence in the race helped elevate critical issues of affordable housing, immigrant justice, and taxing the rich.
In both these races and across the state, we saw the real estate industry, sports gambling, Meta, nursing homes, cryptocurrency and AIPAC special interest groups, dump over $50 million dollars into these races to support other candidates and attack progressives. We are inspired to see that the voters in both districts saw through these special interests’ attacks. All the candidates who ran on progressive platforms won combined super majorities of votes in both races.
We are up against the power of organized money. Thank you for being a part of this people’s organization. Thank you for volunteering, for voting, for engaging your community, and for keeping faith that our governments can and must be a force for good and that by acting together, we can win a better world. ONE People’s Campaign will always be a people-powered organization, and we showed that this election.
Elections are one tool in our tool box. We know that the work to win a government that will work for the people, not corporate profits and billionaires’ wealth, requires year-round organizing. Stay tuned for how you can join our People Over Billionaires Spring Blitz in April and May to force our state lawmakers to use their power to reign in corporate power and invest in public education, housing, healthcare and violence prevention. Save the dates of April 13 for a non-violent direct action in Chicago and April 15th for a lobby day in Springfield. In the meantime, get some rest.
Onward,
Hannah Gelder
Director of Movement Politics
P.S. There were other exciting victories in northside and statewide races. We saw two progressives beat longtime incumbents. Miguel Alvelo Rivera beat Rep. Jaime Andrade in the 40th State House District and Drake Warren beat Comm. Bridget Gainer in the 10th Cook County District. In other open races, Paul Kendrick won in the 12th State House District and Elizabeth Granato in the 12th County Commission District. Finally, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won the Democratic primary for US Senate, beating out MAGA-aligned Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi. We look forward to building relationships with these Democratic nominees as they head into the general election in November.
P.P.S. We are already gearing up for the November election where we will finally elect the entire Chicago School Board. Stay tuned for ways to get involved!