How Redistricting Has Affected Illinois’s Congressional Races
Redistricting has had a bigger impact on congressional races in Illinois than perhaps any other state. In their effort to draw the best possible map for Democrats, legislators significantly redrew the state’s boundaries, putting many incumbents in an awkward situation.
The new map effectively creates a new predominantly Hispanic district, the 3rd, in the Chicago area. As a result, there’s a wide-open Democratic primary for that seat today. However, that also left the old 3rd District’s incumbent, Rep. Marie Newman, without a home district: She now lives in the 4th, but a plurality of her constituents are in the new 6th. She ultimately decided to run for reelection in the 6th, putting her on a collision course with 6th District Rep. Sean Casten.
Downstate, the map also radically redrew Rep. Rodney Davis’s 13th District to lean toward Democrats, so Davis opted to run instead in the new, redder 15th District (where he also happens to live). But that was Rep. Mary Miller’s district before redistricting, and she decided to run there again in 2022, too, setting up our second incumbent-versus-incumbent contest of the day.
For more on the game of musical chairs forced by Illinois’s Democratic gerrymander, check out my video on the subject:
