Rep. Danny Davis, a longtime fixture of Chicago politics, narrowly defeated a hard-fought Democratic primary challenge from a progressive community activist on Tuesday.
AOC-ENDORSED STATE LAWMAKER WINS ILLINOIS DEMOCRATIC HOUSE PRIMARY
Davis, who was first elected to Congress in 1996, won the Democratic nomination for Illinois’s 7th Congressional District over rival Kina Collins. He had the support of President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, high-profile endorsements that could very well have made the difference in such a close race. Pelosi and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also traveled to Chicago to campaign for Davis, a sign of top Democrats’ concern over the race.
Collins, meanwhile, had been backed by Justice Democrats, the left-wing PAC that has scored a series of upsets against entrenched Democratic incumbents, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (NY) victory in 2018. An organizer and activist whose platform advocated the Green New Deal, enacting gun control, ending cash bail, and slashing the military budget, Collins previously challenged Davis in 2020 but lost the primary by a wide margin.
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This time, though, progressives saw an opening for Collins to take down Davis. But while she couldn’t quite pull off a win this time, Davis’s narrow win could prompt the 80-year-old congressman to mull retirement, leaving an opening for Collins to run for the seat in the future.
