Susana Mendoza succeeded Tuesday in her bid for a second full term as Illinois comptroller, fending off challengers Shannon Teresi and Deirdre McCloskey.
She was first elected as Illinois’ comptroller in 2016 after winning a special election following the death of Judy Baar Topinka.
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Mendoza, who has steadily moved up the ranks in Democratic politics from a state representative to Chicago city clerk, ran for Chicago mayor in 2019 but failed to garner enough votes to make the runoff election that was ultimately won by Lori Lightfoot.
Mendoza has taken credit for some of the modest rebounds the state’s finances have seen in recent years. Mendoza entered the comptroller’s office amid a two-year budget standoff and a growing mountain of unpaid bills under former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who through most of his single term was locked in a political stalemate with former Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.
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Now the state is mostly paying its bills within a normal 30-day cycle, and all three Wall Street ratings agencies have upgraded the state’s credit, largely on the strength of budgets approved by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly and signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
McHenry County Auditor Shannon Teresi, of Crystal Lake, was first appointed McHenry County’s internal auditor in 2018. A certified public accountant and certified fraud examiner, she repeatedly tried to tie Mendoza and her time in the state House to Madigan, who has pleaded not guilty to federal bribery and racketeering charges.
Teresi was initially part of a slate of Republican candidates backed by billionaire Ken Griffin in the GOP primary in June. But Teresi and treasurer candidate Tom Demmer, who both ran unopposed, were the only members of the slate to survive the primary, and Griffin left Illinois for Florida, leaving Teresi with not nearly as much fundraising as Mendoza.
