There were only three contested primary elections for local races in DuPage County Tuesday night, but two of them resulted in incumbent upsets.
County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek, who had a tumultuous second term, lost her reelection bid to Democratic challenger Paula Deacon Garcia, a DuPage County Board member from Lisle, according to unofficial vote tallies.
Kaczmarek has been at odds with the county board for more than a year over how she has run her office, resulting in lawsuits on both sides. Two judicial rulings sided with the board and have been appealed by Kaczmarek.
Sadia Covert, a Naperville Democrat who has represented County Board District 5 since 2018, was ousted by Naperville City Councilman Ian Holzhouer by a margin of more than 2,500 votes, unofficial vote counts show.
The final election numbers will not be certified for another 10 or more days and do not include provisional ballots or mail-in ballots postmarked for Election Day but not actually delivered to the county’s Election Division office until Wednesday or later.
In the general election, scheduled for Nov. 3, Garcia will face Republican Patricia Kladis-Schiappa and Holzhauer will compete against Republican Chris Jacks. Neither GOP candidate was challenged in the primary.
The primary results also handed a decisive victory to Sean T. Noonan, who easily beat Edmund “Eddie” Moore in a battle to be the Republican nominee for DuPage sheriff. Unofficial tallies have Noonan winning over Moore by nearly double the vote count.
He will run in the general election against unchallenged Democratic candidate Peter Joseph Coolidge.
The winner of the November election will become the county’s first new sheriff since 2018. Two-term incumbent James Mendrick opted not to seek reelection in order to make a run, unsuccessfully, as a Republican in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary.
Unofficial primary vote counts/percentages as of Tuesday night were:
DuPage County Clerk: Garcia, 54,761 (56.2%); Kaczmarek, 42,670 (43.8%).
DuPage County Sheriff: Noonan, 30,157 (66.4%); Moore, 15,232 (33.5%).
DuPage County Board, District 5: Covert, 6,269 (35.29%); Marylee Leu, 2,669 (15.02%); Holzhauer, 8,828 (49.6%).
The contested DuPage races on the Nov. 3 general election ballot will be:
Clerk: Garcia (D) vs. Kladis-Schiappa (R).
Sheriff: Noonan (R) vs. Coolidge (D).
County Board Chairman: Deb Conroy (D-incumbent) vs. Gary Grasso (R).
Treasurer: Gwen Henry (R-incumbent) vs. Yeena Yoo (D).
County Board District 3 (four-year term): Lucy Chang Evans (D-incumbent) vs. Marcus King (R).
County Board District 3 (two-year term): Kari Galassi (R-incumbent) vs. Ericka Polanko-Webb (D).
County Board District 5 (four-year term): Holzhauer (D) vs. Jacks (R).
County Board District 5 (two-year term): Dawn DeSart (D-incumbent) vs. Daniel Alejandro Lomeli (R).
