Republican incumbents Sue Rezin and Pam Roth, both of Morris, held their seats in Tuesday's state General Assembly elections.
In the race against Jeremy Ly (D - Minooka) for the 75th Illinois House District, Roth enjoyed a decisive victory. She won 62.7 percent of the vote in her district, garnering just over 27,000 votes to compile a nearly 11,000-vote lead over Ly. In Grundy County, she had 64.5 percent of the votes, receiving nearly 10,800 votes and beating Ly by a nearly 2-1 margin.
At the end of the conjoined Roth-Rezin victory party held at The Pub by Chapin's, Roth was congratulated by fellow attendees heading out for the night. She was enthusiastic about the night's outcome.
"I'm really excited — it's been a long time coming," she said. "It's my first race, so it's exciting to be kind of through the campaign process to get to focus back on where we need our state to go and work on those issues."
Roth said she looks forward with her colleagues in the House to promote what she's campaigned for — fiscal responsibility and job growth.
"I think we're going to have a lot of new colleagues down there, so (it's) working with everyone and figuring out how we're going to make Illinois the place it should be," she said. "In my mind, it should be the number one state in the union — we're dead center in the U.S., we have great infrastructure, we have a great workforce, we have an amazing financial center — there's no reason for us not to be number one in this country."
With all of her district's precincts reporting, State Sen. Rezin, who was in a race for the 38th District Illinois Senate seat, had 53.7 percent of the vote, good for an approximately 6,400-vote margin over her opponent, Christine Benson (D-Ottawa). In Grundy County, Rezin held 60 percent of the vote, with over 10,100 votes cast.
Rezin said the news topped off a long day and campaign.
"It's been a long year of work and campaigning and we're glad it's come to an end, and pleased with the outcome, but we certainly need to work across the aisle and make sure everyone's voice is heard," she said.
40TH SENATE DISTRICT
Residents in the 40th District of the Illinois Senate selected Toi Hutchinson (D - Olympia Fields) as their senator for the General Assembly. In the wake of the redistricting following the 2010 Census, Hutchinson's district now includes the southeastern portion of Grundy County.
She outdistanced her opponent, Joseph C. "Tuck" Marshall (R-Frankfort), with 60 percent of the vote in the district, securing a more-than-16,000-vote victory. Of the two candidates, Hutchinson also received the majority of the votes in Grundy County. Locally, just over 1,900 votes were cast for her, which was about 54.2 percent. Marshall received around 1,600 votes, which was about 45.8 percent of the votes.
Calls to Hutchinson's campaign Tuesday night were unsuccessful.
79TH HOUSE DISTRICT
In the race for the 79th District state representative post Katherine "Kate" Cloonen (D-Kankakee) narrowly pulled ahead of her opponent, Glenn Nixon (R-Bourbonnais), by just about 150 votes, unofficial numbers showed late Tuesday night.
Several absentee and provisional ballots likely remain to be counted in the district, which also now includes the southeastern portion of Grundy County.
Cloonen had a wider lead in Grundy County, where she brought in about 59 percent of the vote. Nixon had about 40.8 percent of the votes cast in the race locally.
From her victory party held at her campaign office in Bradley, Cloonen took a moment to thank the volunteers who took part in the effort.
"It's been a hard-fought campaign," she said. "I had great volunteers, I had a great crew."
Cloonen said she also wanted to thank her supporters beyond Kankakee County.
"I wanted to thank everybody from Coal City, Wilmington, and Grundy County," she said. "It always felt good to be there ... I was always well-received. I do look forward to working with the folks from the Grundy County area."
She added she is looking forward to getting to work.
"I appreciate the day-by-day-by-day work and I look forward to being worthy of the trust people have put in me," she said.
