Jubilant 'Chuy' Garcia cruises to victory in race to succeed Gutierrez

[alp227]

Source: Chicago Tribune

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia cruised to a decisive victory Tuesday night in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ lone Latino-majority congressional seat, promising to carry forward a tradition of fierce activism in Washington on behalf of Chicago’s immigrants long established by the man he will be replacing - the retiring U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez.

Garcia, who has served as a Cook County commissioner on the Southwest Side for the past seven years, had collected 67 percent of the vote compared with 21 percent for Logan Square nonprofit executive Sol Flores with 95 percent of precincts reporting. Chicago police Sgt. Richard Gonzalez was in a distant third, with 12 percent, according to the early unofficial results.

The widely expected win for Garcia came on the same night that two other Democratic contenders started to emerge from crowded fields with hopes of knocking off sitting suburban Republican congressmen in the fall general election.

Kelly Mazeski, a planning commissioner from Barrington Hills, held a narrow lead in the race to challenge U.S. Rep Peter Roskam in the 6th District while Lauren Underwood, a nurse from Naperville, was poised to win the nod to take on U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren in the 14th.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-met-jesus-chuy-garcia-congressional-roundup-20180320-story.html?asnans

[Cha]

7. You just have to be divisive.

[George II]

11. Good news for Luis Gutierrez and Illinois Democrats.

[Cha]

12. Yes it is, George!

[lunasun]

2. 8 dems and a handful of repugs all going for Luis Gutierrez's seat . Garcia

is going to DC . It will be interesting to see what this long time progressive will do there

[Judi Lynn]

3. Hoping the new Rep. burns with the same righteous, courageous fire as Luis Gutierrez,

who will be deeply missed.

He looks like a very good person. Wish him the very best.



Thank you, alp227.

[orleans]

4. i'm gonna miss

Luis Gutierrez

[PatSeg]

5. Gutierrez is retiring?

I had no idea. He is such a powerful voice in DC.

[Adrahil]

9. Rumor is he is eyeing a Presidential run....

I doubt he will win, but he'd make a fine Veep.

[PatSeg]

10. Okay

That makes sense then. He seems too young to retired from politics. I'm sure he still has a lot to do.

[cannabis_flower]

6. My Honduran husband..

will be sad to see Luis Gutiérrez go. I think he is his favorite politician.

[Cha]

8. Congratulations to Chuy Garcia!

[Hortensis]

13. However it came about, at least Chuy Garcia is a Progressive

even if he's the one of two who was chosen by Rep. Gutierrez's choice to be his successor. Reading about Chicago politics is never boring. Nice to hear such appreciation for an outgoing pol, but Puerto Rico really needs him.

I notice there's some unhappiness among supporters of the other progressive candidate about the closed primary.

Open primaries may not be that good for Prog candidates overall, gotta be careful what we wish for. We now know that the open primary in Illinois was probably a big factor in the defeat of the Progressive-backed candidate there, Ms. Evans. Republicans were encouraged to vote Democratic against her, and some did. We're likely to see this recur in other open primary states.