(The Center Square) – Illinois voters decide Tuesday who they will send to Washington, D.C. to represent them in the U.S. Congress.
Illinois has several tight races for seats to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Illinois’ 6th Congressional District features incumbent U.S. Rep. Sean Casten, D-Downers Grove, and Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau. Pekau and Casten have had different views on several pressing subjects, including abortion.
Casten spoke at a Planned Parenthood event this September in Aurora to support women’s access to abortion. He said Illinois is an example of what to do regarding abortion care.
“We find ourselves in Illinois as a bastion of a state that’s doing the right thing,” Casten said. “Where people are flooding into our borders, straining our public health workers because we are good and decent people.”
Pekau previously told The Center Square he does not support lax abortion regulations.
“I am pro-life. I was adopted seven years before Roe v. Wade, and the most loving act of my life was a 15-year-old girl carrying me to term and giving me up for adoption,” Pekau said.
Pekau also said his opponent falsely portrays his stance on abortion in campaign ads.
“If you look at the ads he has run against me, they are all false,” Pekau said. “He claims that I do not believe that there should be exceptions for mothers’ life, that I do not believe in exceptions for rape or incest, and I just told you that that is not true.”
Democrat Nikki Budzinski, a union advocate from Peoria, and Republican Regan Deering, an educator, small business owner, and active philanthropist from Decatur, both won their primaries in June for the chance to represent the newly drawn 13th Congressional District in Illinois.
Both candidates have picked up endorsements from different law enforcement groups in Illinois.
“I am proud to announce that with our 34,500 plus members out there whom we represent … we unanimously endorse Regan Deering as the candidate for U.S. Congress for the 13th Congressional District,” said Illinois Fraternal Order of Police President Chris Southwood last month.
Earlier this year, the Police Benevolent & Protective Association of Illinois announced their endorsement of Nikki Budzinski. PBPA President Sean Smoot released a statement supporting Budzinski and her campaign.
“Nikki Budzinski has earned the support of the PBPA of Illinois because she will be an advocate for the safety and training of law enforcement officers in Washington,” Smoot said.
Voters will also be deciding who will fill a U.S. Senate seat up for grabs. The choice between incumbent Democrat Tammy Duckworth, elected to the Senate in 2016 after serving four years in Congress, and GOP nominee and attorney Kathy Salvi.
Duckworth spoke at a Democratic rally in Springfield Monday and said the Republicans have no answers to issues.
“They say we have an inflation problem, they complain and moan about it, but not a single Republican has come up with a solution other than tax breaks for the wealthy,” Duckworth said.
Salvi claims Duckworth supports the wrong people.
“Tammy Duckworth is just a rubber stamp,” Salvi said. “Who does she answer to, not Illinois voters, not Illinois businesses, not Illinois working men and women and their children starving in the classroom. No, she answers to the left progressive minority wing of her party and all the fat cats in Washington who fund her.”
Libertarian U.S. Senate candidate Bill Redpath is also on the ballot.
Illinois’ general midterm election is Tuesday.
