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April 9th , 2023 Political Note #552 Eric Sorensen Illinois 17
2024 General Election
In August, 2022, I was writing about Eric Sorensen’s candidacy. The Democrats holding onto this seat had become uncertain. Previously, Democrat Cheri Bustos had been a fixture in Illinois 17. First elected in 2012, defeating an incumbent whose solution to losing was to try running for Congress in Iowa, she had begun to win elections by 50,000 votes.
In 2020, Bustos’s margin dropped to 12,000. Her opponent, Esther Joy King, the daughter of Christian missionaries from the Texas Mexico border and a graduate of Oral Roberts University ran a tough campaign. King had been an associate in a big law firm for two years. She left the firm for the Illinois Department of Commerce and left the Department when a Democrat was elected governor to join the Army Reserves as a JAG officer. In the campaign, King avoided social issues and focused on business-oriented issues, on reducing taxes and increasing economic growth.
2020 was a tough year for Cheri Bustos in another way. She had led the DCCC and could take some credit for the Democratic wave in 2018. She had the same role for 2020, but ran into problems. Some colleagues complained her staff looked like her, not like them. To continue as head of the DCCC, she replaced some of her staff. Whether the discontent within the DCCC was a factor or not, the Democratic Presidential victory in 2020 was not accompanied by similar success in the House. The number of Democrats in the House dropped from 232 to 222.
Issues added up for Bustos.
- Her personal close election in 2020.
- The unpleasantness about her leadership of the DCCC.
- The loss of Democratic House seats in 2020.
- Trump carrying Illinois 17 in 2016 and in 2020.
- Perhaps even some concern about what redistricting would look like after 2020
In April 2021 (almost exactly two years ago), Cheri Bustos announced she would not run for reelection.
Esther Joy King geared up for 2022. Convinced she was the favorite, she announced almost immediately after Bustos announced her retirement. A half dozen Democrats competed to represent this district that included all or parts of the following counties
- Winnebago (County Seat – Rockford)
- Peoria (County Seat – Peoria)
- McLean (County Seat – Bloomington)
- Rock Island (County Seat – Rock Island; Eric Sorensen’s Moline is also in that County)
- Tazewell (County Seat – Pekin; long-time Senate leader Everett Dirksen’s home town. You don’t want to know what they called their high school team in Dirksen’s hay day.)
- Knox (County Seat – Galesburg. If that sounds familiar, it was Ulysses S Grant’s home town)
A half dozen Democrats competed for the honor. Eric Sorensen won the nomination with 38% of the vote. State Rep Litesa Wallace of Rockford in Winnebago County came in second with 23%. In August, 2022 I began my Political Note about Eric Sorensen, quoting Bob Dylan: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Eric Sorensen was a genuine weatherman, had been for more than 20 years. Not the Weather Underground kind, he was the Al Roker kind of weatherman. He was also a local. He was born and grew up in Rockford. He went to college 40 miles away in DeKalb at Northern Illinois University.
He was living and working a little farther from home — in Moline, 100 miles from Rockford. Moline is part of the Quad Cities (It might be called the Quint Cities now that East Moline gets added to the group that includes Rock Island and Moline, Illinois; Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa.) All of these places were served by WQAD-TV and got their weather reports from Eric Sorensen.
Eric Sorensen had been fired from his first job as a weatherman on a Texas station. His boss hauled him into the office and pointed to the morals clause in his contract. There would be no gays working at this station. Eric Sorensen found a new job in Texas, chasing tornados, among other things. Then he came home to a television station in Rockford.
Returning home was a blessing for Eric Sorensen. Rockford was rural and conservative and a place he could be himself. He became part of the community without compromising who he was. He created Project Tornado – school visits by meteorologists to talk to kids about tornados and other weather phenomena. He joined and served on boards devoted to the LGBTQ community. And he found a partner. In 2014, he moved to Moline and found a larger audience. Eric Sorensen was the kind of person that Ron DeSantis is working to eradicate.
Cheri Bustos lived in Moline. Bustos saw the Democratic party as a majority party representing small cities and rural areas as well as the big cities. That vision worked for Eric Sorensen and for enough of the electorate. He defeated Esther Joy King by about 8,000 votes – a smaller margin than Cheri Bustos’s 2020 victory.
Eric Sorensen’s approach to the general election campaign had been different from Esther King’s. Genuinely a part of the larger communities in the district, Rockford and the Molines, he avoided being divisive as he campaigned. Eric Sorensen’s website began with the issue that was most clearly his – climate change. He described the climate crisis and emphasized that it is not a partisan issue.
Eric Sorensen is adaptable. Now he leads with his concern about jobs and small businesses and inflation. He follows with health care and reproductive rights. Climate change is next. A member of the agriculture committee and the science and technology committee, he joined the New Democratic Coalition caucus and co-chairs the Equality Caucus, which was originally created by Tammy Baldwin and Barney Frank and now includes a huge number of Democrats – gay and not.
Help this mild-mannered, non-divisive weatherman. Keep him in Congress. There is no sign that he will face Esther Joy King again, but he will certainly face opposition. This is a seat Democrats need to win.
One response I get from these Notes is: OK. But who should I give money to? Here is an answer, of sorts. I list priorities below. But remember, even the third priority is a big deal. A lot of people donating small amounts to all of these candidates can be a powerful as each of you picking one candidate and donating a lot.
Take a look below. See if there are ten candidates you can support. If you can’t do that, pick 5. Or choose two. Or pick the one that lives nearest to you.
First Priority
Let’s get a start on flipping the House of Representatives back to the Democrats in 2024. Protect vulnerable incumbents – from first termers to those who are currently in their third term or even their sixth. Candidates I have written about are listed below by the size of their majority in 2022, beginning with Democratic winner with the smallest majority.
- Gabe Vasquez NM 02 1st term Political Note #536
- Yadira Caraveo CO 08 1st term Political Note #537
- Jahana Hayes CT 05 3rd term Political Note #542
- Marie Gluesenkamp Perez WA 03 1st term Political Note #543
- Pat Ryan NY 18 1st term Political Note #545
- Susan Wild PA 07 3rd term Political Note #546
- Matt Cartwright PA 08 6th term Political Note #547
- Andrea Salinas OR 06 1st term Political Note #548
- Wiley Nickel NC 13 1st term Political Note #551
- Eric Sorensen IL 17 1st term Political Note #552
Adam Frisch CO 03 lost to Lauren Boebert in 2022 by 546 votes and is running again. If Democrats are going to take back the House, they have to flip some Republican seats. This would be a great seat to flip. Len’s Political Note #523
Second Priority
Get a start on preserving the Democratic majority in the US Senate in 2024. There are a lot of vulnerable Democrats and very few vulnerable Republicans.
Jon Tester, Montana is, in my view, the most vulnerable Democrat. Len’s Political Note #550
Ruben Gallego, Arizona will be the Democratic nominee. Kyrsten Sinema, the now Independent is up for election and may complicate matters. She will not dominate the contest, though. Len’s Political Note #544
Lucas Kunce, Missouri will probably be the Democratic nominee. An anti-corporate Democrat and a veteran, in 2020, he lost the Democratic nomination to the heir of the Busch fortune. He may be the Democrat with the best chance to flip a Republican seat. Len’s Political Note #538.
Third Priority
State Elections November, 2023
Three candidates for Governor whose victories would be meaningful, both for their states and nationally. Look how meaningful a state supreme court race in Wisconsin was.
Andy Beshear, Kentucky for reelection Len’s Political Note #533
Shawn Wilson, Louisiana to succeed a termed-out Democrat Len’s Political Note #549
Brandon Presley, Mississippi to be the first Democratic Governor of that state in 20 years. Len’s Political Note #535
Four more things
Elections on April 4 were encouraging. You probably know the results.
Democrat Janet Protasiewicz was elected to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court – giving Democrats or liberals a 4-3 majority. That is a big deal for a court facing crucial decisions on an abortion law and redistricting.
Democratic Senate candidate Jodi Habush Sinykin lost a close race in an open Republican district that exemplifies the redistricting problem the court will face. Her opponent promised to join an effort to impeach Janet Protasiewicz before she can damage Republican goals.
Brandon Johnson, from what some candidates of the past called “the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party” was elected Mayor of Chicago.
Two of three State Reps in Tennessee who led chants from the floor of the Tennessee State House were expelled from that body. It will not make for a more compatible House of Representatives that the two Black men were expelled and a white woman was not.
