DuPage County Board member Patricia “Patti” Bellock appeared to have narrowly defeated apparent runner-up Pat Trowbridge in a four-way race for the 81st District Illinois House seat being vacated by Hinsdale Republican Judy Biggert.
Final unofficial returns from the district’s 87 precincts showed Bellock, 51, of Hinsdale headed for the legislature with 4,817 votes, a little more than 40 percent of all votes cast. Trowbridge, 65, of Downers Grove had 4,605 votes and apparently was second with nearly 39 percent of the vote.
Unofficially, accountant and insurance business owner Brian Krajewski, 35, was third with 1,773 votes, and rail-safety advocate George Swimmer, 54, received 683 votes.
No Democrat filed to run in the district, which includes all or parts of Darien, Downers Grove, Clarendon Hills, Hinsdale and Westmont.
In the 42nd District, with all but five precincts reporting, Batavia Ald. Tim Schmitz was leading Geneva Township Supervisor Patrick Jaeger in a four-way Republican primary race for the 42nd District Illinois House seat.
Schmitz had 3,943 votes to Jaeger’s 3,606. Aurora Township Trustee Jim Pilmer was third with 2,836 votes, and political activist Ravi Singh garnered 1,884 votes.
The 42nd District meanders along the Fox River from portions of Aurora and Montgomery, through North Aurora, Batavia and Geneva and into a portion of St. Charles.
In the DuPage-Kane County area’s only contested Democratic state House primary, former Wayne Township Democratic Party Chairman James Brewer, a certified public accountant from Carol Stream, held a commanding lead over Hanover Park businessman Rick Mattox in their duel to challenge 50th District Rep. Tom Johnson (R-West Chicago). With 87 percent of the vote counted, Brewer was leading with 60 percent of the vote, or 1,478 votes to 1,004.
In Kane County, accountant David Rickert defeated longtime treasurer’s deputy Della Winckler by about 700 votes in the Republican race to succeed retiring county Treasurer Gordon Volkman. Incumbent County Clerk Lorraine Sava easily defeated Roberta “Bobbie” Ward in her bid for a fourth term.
Kane County Sheriff Ken Ramsey and Regional School Supt. Clem Mejia, both Republicans, ran without primary opposition in their respective bids for a second term.
No Democrats filed to run for any of Kane’s countywide offices in the primary, but the party has until May 18 to slate candidates for the November general election in the heavily Republican county.
