Jim Oberweis' Last Stand
State Senator Jim Oberweis (R-Sugar Grove) has run for office nearly every two years since 2002. His race for Congress in 2020 may be his last stand.
If there’s a Susan Lucci in Illinois politics, it might be Jim Oberweis. Non-politicos likely recognize his last name for the large chain of ice cream shops around the state. Voters may recognize his name because it’s been on a ballot for one race or another nearly a dozen times over the last 18 years.
Oberweis has run for the trifecta of US Senate, Illinois governor and Congress, coming up short each time. He finally notched his first electoral victory winning a State Senate seat in the far western suburbs in 2012. He won re-election in 2016.
The 74-year-old multi-millionaire said he wasn’t planning to run for office again, but got the itch to do it after freshman Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Naperville) won the race for the 14th Congressional district in 2018. The seat once held by longtime House Speaker Denny Hastert in turned blue in a Democratic wave.
Oberweis said he was bothered by Underwood’s voting record which aligned 100% with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“I don’t plan to do this forever,” Oberweis said. “I thought I had to do something to help keep a bright future for my grandkids. Those 24 grandkids when they grow, I want to see they have the same kind of economic opportunities that you and I had.”
Underwood upset three-term incumbent Randy Hultgren two years ago in a district many Republicans never expected to flip. Democrats across the country, many in districts like the 14th with a slew of suburban voters soured on President Trump, flipped Republican seats and gave the Democrats control of the House of Representatives. The 34-year-old registered nurse represented a generational shift with millennial candidates taking office for the first time. She’s also an African American representing a district that is 86% white.
Oberweis has been running as a more traditional, business-friendly Republican.
“We are going to be coming out of this economic setback from this pandemic and I think it’s critical that we have people representing us in Washington that understand what it takes to motivate businessmen and entrepreneurs to risk their time, their energy, and their capital to create jobs and opportunities for people,” he said. “That’s what I’ve done my whole life.”
Lawmakers met this spring to approve a budget counting on billions of dollars from Congress to balance out Illinois’ finances. Illinois’ bottom line went from bad to worse with evaporating revenues from the pandemic.
Would a Rep. Oberweis help out his friends back in Springfield?
“Do I think other states should bail us out for the mistakes that we’ve made, the overspending and the fact that we’ve allowed waste, fraud and abuse to go on in this state for 20 and 30 years? No,” he said. “I don’t think the taxpayers Florida and Texas and Arizona and Indiana and Wisconsin should bail us out. I think that would be a mistake.”
When asked about his campaign, Oberweis was quick to criticize his opponent rather than run on his record. He questioned Underwood’s credentials as a registered nurse, pointing out she never worked in a hospital. Underwood earned a degree in nursing from the University of Michigan and two master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins before starting her career as a policy professional in the Obama administration and later an advisor for the Department of Health and Human Services.
“In March, we were desperate for people with a medical background, for nurses in so many areas,” Oberweis said. “Did she come out to help? No.”
Underwood’s campaign declined an interview.
The elephant in the room in this race is President Donald Trump. Trump won suburban voters in 2016 but many of those same voters switched to voting for Democrats in 2018 to create that blue wave. Oberweis said his campaign’s polling shows Trump and Biden, as well as Underwood and himself, in a dead heat in the 14th Congressional district.
The Oberweis campaign declined to share any of the polling data he cited.
“I think (Trump’s) policy has been great, personality maybe leaves a little bit to be desired,” Oberweis said, trying not to run too close or too far from the President politically. “It seems like there’s a lot of people that are diehard Trump supporters that think he’s really shaking things up in Washington and that’s a good thing and then there are a lot of people who are strongly opposed to the way he has done it, his personality if you want to call it that.”
With less than a month before the final votes are cast, Oberweis is running a more traditional campaign in another sense: door-knocking. While the Biden campaign and other Democratic candidates are avoiding going to people’s homes in person because of the pandemic, he said he was still trying to win over votes the old-fashioned way.
“She said, ‘I’m not knocking on any doors, it’s too dangerous’,” he said. “Let me tell you, we’re knocking on doors all over the district. I wear a mask, I step back six feet from the door, but a lot of people are happy to talk to us and share their opinions and they like meeting congressional candidates.”
The Illinois 14th Congressional race could be barometer for close congressional races across the country as there are few truly competitive districts left in the House. A win for Underwood would suggest Democrats hold on to their gains in 2018 and Biden is well-positioned to win the White House. A win for Oberweis could bode well for Trump’s chances for a second term.
It may also tell us whether we ever see Jim Oberweis’ name on a ballot again.