Voters to decide on Democrat to replace Rep. Danny Davis after decades-long 7th Congressional District reign
It’s the dawn of a new political era in Illinois’s 7th Congressional District, as voters look to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Danny Davis after nearly three decades in office.
Thirteen Democratic candidates are vying for the seat Davis has held since 1997.
Two of the candidates have already tried and failed to unseat him, and another wasn’t yet born when the 84-year-old U.S. representative first took office.
All thirteen candidates, representing a diverse district that includes part of Englewood, the Loop, Austin and several suburbs, hope to offer a fresh counter to President Donald Trump’s agenda in Washington.
Davis wants a fellow West Sider, state Rep. La Shawn Ford, to take over the job. Davis endorsed Ford when announcing his retirement last summer.
Ford has served in the Illinois General Assembly since 2007. He unsuccessfully ran for Chicago mayor back in 2019.
He currently chairs the House appropriations committee for higher education, and has notably advocated for supervised drug-use sites to reduce fatal overdoses, and for state regulation of hemp-derived THC products.
Ford has faced federal bank fraud charges but they were dropped before he pleaded guilty in 2014 to a lesser misdemeanor for failing to pay about $3,700 in income taxes.
Another prominent name in the race who also carries a bit of political baggage is two-term Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin. She ran to unseat Davis two years ago and finished as a distant runner-up.
Prior to that Conyears-Ervin was an executive at Allstate, and championed child-care initiatives during a term in the Illinois House.
Last year, she agreed to pay a $30,000 fine to the Chicago Board of Ethics to settle two charges related to allegations from former employees that she’d abused her power as treasurer.
Community organizer Kina Collins is another repeat candidate. The 34-year-old finished third behind Davis and Conyears-Ervin in the 2024 primary. But in 2022 she finished in second, just about six percentage points shy of Davis.
Another candidate is former Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin, who has close ties to the Davis camp, serving as chief of staff for the first decade of the congressman’s tenure.
Since losing his commissioner seat in 2018, Boykin has worked in private practice as an attorney and made unsuccessful bids for county board president and circuit court clerk.
Labor leader Anthony Driver is making his first run for publicly elected office. He currently serves as executive director of the influential Service Employees International Union Illinois State Council.
Before that, he was the first president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, where he remains a commissioner.
Jason Friedman doesn’t have experience in public office but is leaning on his legal and real estate expertise. He’s an owner and former president of Friedman Properties, a massive River North real estate firm with deep ties to several mayoral administrations.
Like Friedman, University of Chicago Medical Center emergency physician Thomas Fisher has also brought some big money into the race. He has raised more than $626,000 on a platform centered on improving health care access.
The remaining six candidates are adjunct lecturer David Ehrlich, Forest Park mayor Rory Hoskins, immigrant rights organizer Anabel Mendoza, human resources worker Jazmin Robinson, former U.S. Department of Justice lawyer Reed Showalter and technology engineer Felix Tello.
Whoever wins the Democratic primary is heavily favored to replace Davis in the deep blue district. Still, they will face either Patricia “P Rae” Easley or Chad Koppie, the two candidates vying for the Republican nomination, in November.