The 17-member Cook County Board is guaranteed at least four new faces next year thanks to two retirements and two ambitious congressional hopefuls.
Among the spots up for grabs in primary elections Tuesday: the board’s sole Republican seat, two suburban districts covering much of the Southland and the northwest suburbs, and another on the city’s North Side.
The board had already seen significant turnover in recent months, as three commissioners appointed since the summer of 2024 are defending their seats. And two longer-serving incumbents are also fighting off primary challengers.
While voters in each district will carry particular concerns into the voting booth, candidates almost universally promised to tamp down property taxes and address potential budget hits with the final wind-down of pandemic aid and cuts to federal health care subsidies.
Open races
Four seats opened up this cycle. Commissioners Bridget Degnen and Sean Morrison are stepping aside, while Kevin Morrison and Donna Miller opted to run for Congress instead.
The Southland’s 6th District, which Miller has represented since 2018, attracted a field of five Democratic candidates. But only two have raised enough money to mount a serious campaign: attorney Wesam Shahed and Worth Township Supervisor Patricia Joan Murphy.
“Trish” Murphy, the daughter of the late Commissioner Joan Patricia Murphy, argues she is the best qualified of the batch, having worked in Worth and as vice chair of the Moraine Valley Community College District Board, where she oversaw budgets, staff and services.
Murphy previously ran kiosks at Navy Pier and has been the Democratic committeeperson for Worth township since 2018. She’s raised just over $130,000 over the past year and previously ran for the seat in 2018, losing to Miller in the primary by only 1,145 votes.
But Shahed, a first-generation Palestinian American former prosecutor and senior legislative counsel for Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, has raised nearly $650,000 since last August alone. Aside from Raoul, he’s also racked up endorsements from U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, SEIU Illinois, the Illinois Nurses Union, progressive County Board members Alma Anaya and Jessica Vásquez and AFSCME, which represents thousands of county workers.
He has sought to nationalize the race, saying in a campaign video that the district needs “a leader who is going to rise and meet this critical moment in history.”
He is trying to position himself as the commissioner best able to stand up to President Donald Trump “weaponizing ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) against our communities,” “gutting Medicaid all over the country” and threatening women’s right to abortion.
Also running are real-estate agent Antoine Bass, social worker Sylvester Fulcher and Veronica Bolling-Franklin, a school board member for Elementary School District 159.
In the 12th District on Chicago’s North Side, the county’s current asset management chief, Elizabeth Granato, has led the fundraising and endorsement match in the Democratic primary against challengers José “Che-Che” Wilson and Isaiah White to replace Bridget Degnen.
The candidate Degnen endorsed, Catherine “Cat” Sharp, dropped out to fight a federal court case related to ICE protests at Broadview. Federal prosecutors dropped the charges against Sharp this week.
Granato, the wife of state Sen. Ram Villivalam and daughter of former Ald. Jesse Granato, has raised over $500,000 — nearly half came via transfers from Villivalam’s various campaign committees — and secured endorsements from U.S. Reps. Jan Schakowsky, Delia Ramirez, Jesús “Chuy” García, Mike Quigley and several progressives and moderates on the Chicago City Council, County Board and Illinois General Assembly.
State colleagues of Villivalam including Senate President Don Harmon and state Sens. Rob Martwick and Omar Aquino chipped in another $95,000 combined.
Citing federal threats to health care access and rising costs for working families, Granato argues she’s best equipped to navigate the county from the jump.
Wilson, the director of civic engagement for LGBT advocacy group Equality Illinois, said he’s the alternative to insider Granato. “You deserve better than the undemocratic Chicago machine politics that try to buy political offices,” one of his mailers reads, noting the infusion from Villivalam’s campaign.
He pledges to broaden the county’s revenue base without raising property taxes, expand the forest preserves and said the county’s most pressing issue are federal cuts that threaten Cook County Health. He has the support of Aldermen Timmy Knudsen and Scott Waguespack, and state Sen. Lakesia Collins.
Isaiah White, an elementary school teacher in a Chicago public school, said he is running to bring “a moderate, pragmatic perspective” to the board. He has been endorsed by more business-friendly Democrats like former CPS CEO Paul Vallas, Aldermen Anthony Napolitano and Brian Hopkins, and the Neighborhood Building Owners Alliance, which represents landlords.
Though the county hasn’t raised its base levy since the 1990s, he has pledged to lower property taxes while boosting staffing at the offices of the sheriff and the public defender. He’s also pledged to strengthen the county’s ethics ordinance and plant 2 million trees.
In the 15th District, which stretches from Des Plaines west through Hoffman Estates to Barrington Hills and Elgin, where Democrat Kevin Morrison exited to run for U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi’s seat, his chief of staff, Ted Mason, is running unopposed in the Democratic primary.
Republicans Gabriella Hoxie, a 25-year-old staffer for House Republican Leader Tony McCombie, and small business owner Daniel Lee are competing for their party’s nomination in the 15th. Though the district was once red, Kevin Morrison handily won against Republican Chuck Cerniglia in 2022.
The board’s lone Republican, Sean Morrison, is stepping aside in the 17th District, which runs along the county’s western boundary from Elk Grove Village south through Schiller Park, Oak Brook, Lemont, Palos Park and Orland Park. Both primaries there are uncontested. Democrat Elyse Hoffenberg and Republican Liz Doody Gorman will face off in November.
Appointees defending seats
In the 2nd District, which covers the city’s West and South sides and down Michigan Avenue , incumbent Michael Scott Jr., was first appointed to the seat in 2024 after resigning from the Chicago City Council in 2022. He faces Andre Smith, a community activist who unsuccessfully ran for a seat on Chicago’s new school board last year. Scott, the director of community and industry relations at Cinespace Studios, previously worked as an area manager at the Chicago Park District.
In the 5th District, spanning Blue Island, Dixmoor, Hazel Crest, Olympia Fields, Chicago Heights and Ford Heights, Kisha McCaskill is defending her seat against Kiana Belcher, a trustee for the village of Dolton since 2021.
McCaskill, the executive director of the Harvey Park District, was appointed to the board early last year after Monica Gordon rose to become county clerk. McCaskill’s husband, Anthony McCaskill, previous president of the Harvey Park Board and current head of the library board, made an unsuccessful run for Harvey mayor in 2023.
Belcher was one of a group of candidates who ran as part of the “Clean House” slate to oppose former Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard. “People have seen that I don’t mind going against the grain, I don’t mind standing up for my residents, and I’ll do the same thing at the county level,” she told the Daily Southtown.
Belcher has been endorsed by U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, state Rep. Will Davis, former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, SEIU’s Illinois state council and the Sierra Club. McCaskill has the endorsement of the Chicago Federation of Labor, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, and several suburban mayors and members of the General Assembly.
Appointed to the seat last May as part of a grand reshuffle kicked off by former Ald. Carlos Ramirez Rosa’s appointment to run the Chicago Park District, Jessica Vasquez is defending her seat against Nicholas Cade, a U.S. Navy service member, attorney and former Teach for America participant. The 8th District includes Chicago neighborhoods Irving Park, Avondale, Logan Square, Belmont Cragin and Portage Park.
In her short time on the board, Vasquez has been a vocal critic of ICE enforcement in Chicago, helping pass a resolution calling for county offices to notify commissioners of any immigration enforcement agent sightings. She is endorsed by fellow progressives like Commissioner Alma Anaya, state Rep. Will Guzzardi and Aldermen Ruth Cruz and Daniel La Spata.
Cade has been endorsed by pro-growth groups that advocate building more housing.
Incumbents with a challenge
Bridget Gainer, a member of the County Board since 2010 and founder and chair of the county’s Land Bank Authority, faces her first serious challenge in years. The 10th District extends from the Lakeview neighborhood up to Devon Avenue and also includes much of Chicago’s Northwest Side.
Gainer faces Drake Warren, a former industrial engineer at West Monroe who donated more than $100,000 to his own campaign fund. Citing Gainer’s outside employment as the global head of public affairs and policy at Aon and her attendance record at County Board meetings, Warren said he would be a full-time commissioner. A recent Sun-Times analysis found that Gainer had missed about 23% of County Board meetings.
“Hey, that’s better than 2018, when she was at the very bottom, missing one in three meetings,” Warren said in a recent social media post.
He is backing a ban on outside employment for county officials, supports a budget floor for the county’s inspector general and reform efforts to cut down and consolidate units of local government in Cook County. Gainer has argued her expertise from her outside job gives her valuable insight for her county job.
The West Side’s 16th District, which swings from Cicero, Lyons and Riverside up through Melrose Park, features a three-way race steeped in tangled histories. Commissioner Frank Aguilar, a former Republican, faces one old opponent and the daughter of another.
Aguilar beat Leticia “Letty” Garcia, a nurse and the current Berwyn city clerk, in the 2022 Democratic primary for his full first term on the board.
And as a Republican, he beat Lisa Hernandez for his seat in the Illinois General Assembly 20 years before that. Hernandez, now a state Representative and chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois, is supporting daughter Miranda Hernandez in the race, including transferring more than $20,000 to her campaign fund.
Miranda Hernandez is a legislative deputy for State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke and previously worked in Washington, D.C., on the Senate Judiciary Committee and on the Department of Justice’s Reproductive Rights Task Force. She is endorsed by a broad swath of elected officials, including House Speaker Chris Welch, Melrose Park Mayor Ron Serpico and Cicero Town President Larry Dominic, whom Aguilar had a falling-out with in recent years.
Hernandez said she is focused on funding law enforcement and public safety initiatives and offering property tax assistance.
Garcia is presenting herself as the independent in the race. “Many voters are increasingly wary of the perception of nepotism and backroom deals,” a recent campaign email said. Garcia “represents a grassroots alternative for those who have grown weary of the status quo.”
