The Associated Press has declared Democrat Jonathan Jackson the winner in the 1st Congressional District race, filling the seat of longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, who chose not to run again.
The son of famed civil right activist Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jackson on the campaign trail argued he wouldn’t “be a regular freshman congressperson,” due to the relationships he’s developed with sitting House members while working around the nation on voter drives for his father’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition.
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In the race to succeed retiring Rush, the Jackson family name gave Jonathan Jackson a leg up as he won the Democratic primary for the 1st District seat against 16 other hopefuls.
And it helped make Jackson the overwhelming favorite in the general election in a district where, according to a Daily Kos analysis, President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump 70.5% to 28.1%.
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Also bolstering Jackson’s candidacy has been the history of the 1st District, which elected the first Black person to Congress in the 20th century and the first ever in the North. The district, which stretches from the South Loop deep into the south suburbs to the edge of Kankakee County, is now 49.7% Black, according to state Democrats who designed the latest Illinois congressional map.
On the Republican side, Eric Carlson touted his outreach to Black voters who he says the Democratic Party has taken for granted. As he ran for public office, Carlson, of Lemont, had to address that he spent nearly six years in prison after being convicted 27 years ago of sexually assaulting a woman following the South Side Irish Parade.
