Democrat Rep. Danny K. Davis Keeps Longtime Seat in Closely Watched Primary

CHICAGO—Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.), a decades-long incumbent, has won the March 19 Democratic primary, virtually guaranteeing him reelection in the general election later this year.

“It’s great to win here in Illinois, but we’ve also got to win in Wisconsin–we’ve got to win in Michigan,” he said, predicting his party would “take the House back” and that he would be elevated to the chair of the Worker and Family Support Subcommittee of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

The race was called at 9:05 p.m. ET.

He fended off challenges from Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin as well as Kina Collins, an anti-gun violence activist.

The congressman told The Epoch Times on March 18 that he didn’t believe the city’s treasurer, a former state-level lawmaker, to be qualified for the role.

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The 82-year-old also dismissed as “poppycock” any concerns over his age and the possibility of a health crisis felling him while in office.

Mr. Davis previously defeated Ms. Collins in his district’s 2022 Democratic primary. She finished well within 10 points of him in that race, signaling a vulnerability that helped drive interest in the 2024 contest.

This time, of course, the lawmaker was up against several candidates who split the anti-Davis vote.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Davis’s office, Tumia Romero, told The Epoch Times on March 18 that their pollster, Public Policy Polling, suggested that a fractured field put him at an advantage.

“If we won in 2022 in a two-way race, it’s likely we [will] win again in a five-way race,” she said via email, paraphrasing the pollster’s sentiment.

In the days ahead of the election, Mr. Davis visited constituents across the plurality black district, which is also heavily white, Asian, and Hispanic.

In particular, his schedule had him stopping at locations for which he secured federal money, like the historic former Guyon Hotel on Chicago’s West Side along with St. Leonard’s Ministries. The former was part of a $2,000,000 grant for affordable housing, while the latter received $850,000 to enhance its housing for low-income, newly released prisoners.

On the morning of March 19, Election Day, Mr. Davis went to vote at the Sankofa Cultural Center in Austin.

In anticipation of the election results, he held an “election night celebration” at the Westside Baptist Ministers Conference Center.