As we approach the upcoming Illinois primary election next Tuesday, many eyes are on the biggest race, the presidential primary, whose results will determine who goes head-to-head to be commander in chief in November. Some are on other federal races, including hotly contested Congressional races that will decide who represents people from across Illinois in Washington.
Other eyes are on races that are closer to home, like the race between incumbent State Rep. Abdelnasser Rashid and former Chicago cop Vidal Vasquez. They’re facing off for the Democratic nomination for Illinois House District 21, which encompasses much of Riverside and parts of Brookfield.
In their campaigns, Rashid and Vasquez emphasized different issues affecting district residents.
Rashid’s campaign focused on goals like strengthening the economy through infrastructure, expanding pathways to jobs, supporting gun control laws, ensuring flood relief and others that reflect his more progressive views.
Vasquez’s campaign emphasized his support for keeping the public safe from crime, capping annual property taxes for working-class families, allowing parents to choose where their children go to school and ensuring police and members of the judicial system can continue to work “without unreasonable restraint.”
As the race is a primary, both candidates are registered as Democrats, and their views did align on some topics. For example, both candidates’ campaigns showed that they support allowing access to abortion, and both promoted different issues they see affecting working-class constituents.
At the Landmark, these differing approaches to District 21 issues got us wondering about the issues that constituents and voters in the district really care about. In an attempt to capture their views, the Landmark issued an informal survey for readers who live in the portions of Riverside and Brookfield that fall under District 21, asking them to rank 11 issues — each one listed on one of the candidates’ websites or mentioned by them on the campaign trail — on a scale from one to five to indicate how important they find each issue and to share which issue is most important to them in the primary. Seven of the issues were taken from Rashid’s campaign while four were taken from Vasquez’s, as Rashid’s website goes into more detail on his views.
We published the survey in our email newsletter Thursday and on our Facebook page Friday. As of Monday, 23 respondents indicated their views on the issues and 15 chose to elaborate on their top issue for the primary.
The results
Across the board, every issue received more votes on the higher end of the scale, indicating general support for all of the views. One of Vasquez’s issues, “Keeping the public safe,” received the most support from respondents, with 15 ranking it five on the scale to indicate it as “very important.” The view receiving the next most support was “Supporting bans on military-style assault weapons,” one of Rashid’s, which received 14 votes marking it very important.
The issue that got the relative least support was Vasquez’s goal of “giving parents the freedom to choose where their children go to school, including private schools. That view received seven votes marking it at one out of five for “not important at all,” though it received the same number of votes marking it four out of five.
The next lowest-ranked view was also one of Vasquez’s. “Ensuring police, prosecutors, judges and public defenders can ‘do their job without unreasonable restraint,’” which Vasquez said was his top issue in his candidate questionnaire with the Chicago Sun-Times, received six votes ranking it not important at all.
Many of Rashid’s issues received mixed support, with several getting more votes marking them toward the middle of the spectrum than indicating them as very important. For example, “Investing in domestic violence shelters and healthcare for survivors,” which Rashid listed on his campaign website, received eight votes of three out of five, more than it got for any other option.
When it came to explaining their own top issues, the 15 respondents who elaborated fell all along the spectrum of views. Several reiterated some of Vasquez’s points that were included in the survey as their top issues, including enabling the police to do their jobs, prosecuting criminals and keeping the public safe. Some aligned more closely with Rashid’s views, stating they valued reproductive health, gun control and environmental protections, all things his campaign says he supports.
Ultimately, District 21 residents will have the opportunity to make their opinions on the issues known on Election Day next week; only time will tell as to whether Rashid or Vasquez is selected as the Democratic challenger for the state House seat and how Riverside and Brookfield residents in the district will have voted in the race.
