MILLER: Speaker Welch looks to grow super-majority in Illinois House

Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch has said he thinks he can flip somewhere between four and six Republican-held House districts to Democratic control, upping his super-majority to between 82 and 84 seats, from his current 78.

Which Republican districts are flippable? I talked with a high-level source close to Welch’s caucus who pointed to the following races.

•   47th House District – Rep. Amy Grant (R-Wheaton) vs. Jackie Williamson. President Joe Biden won this district by 12 percentage points four years ago. Every statewide Democratic candidate won the district two years ago and Gov. JB Pritzker won it by 8 points.

Rep. Grant’s campaign had just $13,542 in the bank at the end of June. She’s since reported raising a mere $10,000. Keep in mind that the House Democrats have a vast and ever-growing fundraising advantage over the House Republicans. So, the money that these Republican incumbents have raised so far is much more important to understanding their predicaments. Grant is a strong abortion rights opponent.

•   52nd House District – Rep. Marty McLaughlin (R-Barrington Hills) vs. Maria Peterson. Peterson lost to then-Senate Republican Leader Dan McConchie by just a few hundred votes two years ago. Biden won the 52nd by 6 points four years ago and all statewide Democratic candidates took it in 2022.

McLaughlin is personally wealthy, but he reported having just $100K on hand at the end of June and has reported raising $9K since then. He also has some labor support.

As with all of these districts, the Republicans’ anti-abortion stances will play a major role in the Democrats’ campaigns.

•   114th House District – Rep. Kevin Schmidt (R-Cahokia Heights) vs. former Rep. LaToya Greenwood (D-East St. Louis). Greenwood’s 2022 loss to the Donald Trump-supporting Schmidt shocked the Black Caucus. Four years ago, President Joe Biden won the precincts in this redrawn district by more than 7 points. Prior to that, no statewide Democrat lost those precincts going back years. But the only statewide Dem who won the district in 2022 was US Sen. Tammy Duckworth. The Republican Schmidt won it by almost 6 points. The local NAACP and other Black leaders accused the House Democrats of taking too many Black precincts away from Greenwood during the remap and doling them out to neighboring White legislators. They ended up being right, at least as far as 2022 went.

The party line is that Greenwood lost because Black voters stayed home and Donald Trump voters surged to the polls. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, the HDems believe, will bring their base voters out in November. We’ll see.

•   104th House District – Rep. Brandun Schweitzer (R-Danville) vs Jarrett Clem. Schweitzer was appointed to replace Rep. Mike Marron. Biden won the 104th by almost 4 points, and four out of six statewide Democrats carried the district two years ago (Kwame Raoul and Alexi Giannoulias both lost by 2 points). This has usually been a pro-union, pro-Republican region, but the tide may be changing after the remap and the Democrat Clem has strong union support.

Rep. Schweitzer isn’t well known and the Democrats think they can use their superior financial firepower to define him at will. Schweitzer ended the quarter with $15K in the bank and has raised $21K since.

•   79th House District – Rep. Jackie Haas (R-Bourbonnais) vs. Billy Morgan. Biden lost this district by a point, and most Democrats lost the district in 2022, including Gov. Pritzker by 6. Even so, the House Democrats think they can pull this off, partly because the district is pro-union.

Rep. Haas ended the quarter with $62K in the bank and has reported raising $9K since then.

•   82nd House District – Rep. Nicole La Ha Zwiercan (R-Homer Glen) vs. Suzanne Akhras. La Ha Zwiercan was appointed to replace former House Republican Leader Jim Durkin. Trump won the district by two points, and no statewide Democrats carried it in 2022. Darren Bailey beat Gov. Pritzker by 3 points.

•   48th House District – Rep. Jennifer Sanalitro (R-Hanover Park) vs. Maria Vesey. Biden won the district by 2.6 points and all statewide Democrats except Treasure Mike Frerichs carried the 48th two years ago. The Democrats didn’t unearth photos of Sanalitro at the January 6th “Stop the Steal” protests until very late in the game two years ago, so they’ll put that issue at the forefront of their campaign. Sanalitro insists that she wasn’t a protest participant. Sanalitro has been endorsed by the Illinois AFL-CIO and the Workers’ Rights Amendment carried the district by 7 points two years ago.

Rep. Sanalitro ended the quarter with $69K and has reported raising $28K since then.

Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.