In 2019, the website Common Dreams published a report called “Bad Blues,” consisting of a list of House Democrats they believed should be primaried by progressives for “serving corporate interests over people.” Some of the members on the list, such as Eliot Engel and Dan Lipinski, ultimately were defeated in their primaries by progressive challengers in 2020. Others, such as Josh Gottheimer, prevailed in challenges against strong primary opponents. Yet some on the list did not face any primary challengers on the ballot in 2020; one of them was Brad Schneider, the Democratic representative from Illinois’s 10th Congressional District.
Illinois’ 10th Congressional District is located in Lake and Cook County in Illinois, spanning the northern suburbs of Chicago. A seemingly blue district that leans 14 points more Democratic than the nation as a whole and has solidly voted for the Democratic Party in recent presidential elections, it would seem to be a prime congressional target for the progressive wing of the party.
Yet, hidden behind its Democratic voting patterns on the national level, Illinois’s 10th Congressional District was represented from 1980 to 2012 by three moderate Republicans, without a single Democratic win in the district in that 30-year period. When Republican Bob Dold was finally defeated in 2012 by Democrat Brad Schneider, he came back in 2014 to win back the seat. Only once Schneider defeated Dold again in 2016 was the district’s Republican voting patterns broken, with Schneider handily winning reelection with over 60% of the vote in 2018 and 2020.
With Schneider winning his last two elections with ease and Democrats in statewide and national elections continuing to dominate in the district, it would seem that there would be room for the district to support a progressive representative. However, in a Democratic Party defined by the split between progressives and moderates on certain wedge issues, Schneider has continually voted with the more centrist wing of the party. A “Congressional Democratic Leftist Tracker” run by a John Jay College student reveals the split between Schneider and some of his more progessive counterparts on issues such as Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, abolishing the death penalty, student debt cancellation, tuition free public college, and more.
It isn’t just in his sponsorship and votes where Schneider has firmly established his position as a moderate. Despite describing himself as “Principled. Proven. Progressive.” on his website, Schneider is not a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but rather is a member of the moderate New Democrat Coalition and the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition.
After State Senator Daniel Biss named socialist alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa as his running mate in the 2018 Illinois Democratic gubernatorial primary, Schneider rescinded his endorsement of Biss due to Ramirez-Rosa’s support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions protest movement. Although Biss ultimately dropped Ramirez-Rosa as his running mate, Schneider did not end up making another endorsement in the primaries. In 2019, Schneider further introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives, condemning the BDS protest movement. More recently, fellow Democrat Ilhan Omar complained of Islamophobic tropes in a letter circulated by a group led by Schneider accusing her of “giving cover to terrorist groups” in response to her comments regarding Israel.
As a member of the New Democrat Coalition, Schneider has led fundraising to elect more moderate Democrats to the House of Representatives. Moreover, after progressive Nina Turner was defeated by the more moderate Shontel Brown, Schneider wrote an op-ed in The Hill suggesting that the way forward for the Democratic Party was to continue electing more moderates rather than progressives. Criticizing the “my way or the highway” approach of what he termed the “ultra left” and singling out the Justice Democrats for criticism for launching primary challenges against sitting Democrats in Congress, Schneider suggested that “mainstream Democrats” should instead build a “big tent party that can stand up to the barrage from both the far left and the far right.”
In a district which has not voted for a Republican at the national level in decades, it would seem as though there would be room for a progressive candidate to at least run for the seat, if not win. In 2012, during his first run for office, Schneider faced a strong challenge from progressive Ilya Sheyman, with Schneider narrowly prevailing by around 8 points. In 2016, when making his comeback run for the seat after having lost it in 2014, Schneider faced another strong challenge from Highland Park mayor Nancy Rotering, who positioned herself as the more progressive candidate. Schneider narrowly won that race too, by around 7 points. As an incumbent, however, Schneider has not faced any primary challenger from the left on the ballot.
The closest thing to a serious primary challenge from the left came in 2020, when democratic socialist Vernon Township Trustee Adam Broad announced his bid to launch a primary challenge to Brad Schneider. However, after the validity of his petition signatures were challenged, Broad was tossed off the ballot, which led him to complain that his access was “legally stolen.” Broad ultimately opted to run as a write-in candidate, where he received 115 votes in the primary, or approximately 0.1% of the vote.
The trendline of the 10th Congressional District raises two different, but related questions. How did such a blue district on the national level continue electing Republican members of Congress at the local level for so long? How does such a blue district, now that there is no danger of a Republican candidate winning the seat, now continually elect one of the most moderate Democrats in Congress, without any serious primary challenge from the left?
Fitting the District
Elliott Hartstein, a former mayor of Buffalo Grove, which is located in the 10th Congressional District, was quick to reject the label of Schneider as a moderate, saying in an interview with the HPR, “You can label him as you perceive him … I would refer to him as a pragmatic progressive rather than a moderate.” According to him, Schneider is a supporter of the same causes as others who are labeled as progressives, it is just that Schneider “understands the realities of getting things done.”
Hartstein explained the voting tendencies of the district by pointing toward the demographics of the district. IL-10 is a diverse district, but Hartstein notes that much of the upper middle class district is well-educated, contributing, in his mind, to voters acting as more “independent thinkers” at the ballot. According to Hartstein, “There are a lot of county districts, especially some city districts, where people will vote because they were pushed to vote whereas there are a lot of people who are independent thinkers in this district and they look at candidates more than in a lot of other districts…The education level in our district is very very high and I think that in itself contributes to the people being more discerning and actually looking at candidates more than in a lot of other districts.”
This, according to Hartstein, was also the reason why Schneider lost his seat to Bob Dold in 2014 after his first term. Dold was seen more in the district and attended all the major events in the district, which Schneider failed to do. As a result, by being able to more effectively push his message and connect with the voters, “Dold was perceived as more moderate than he actually was,” helping him to beat Schneider in 2014.
This is where Schneider has tremendously improved, according to Harstein, by “knowing the district and being out and about in the district” and as a result, building trust in the community to the level where constituents can trust him to properly represent their views in Congress. Hartstein describes Schneider as the “best fit for the district,” who could relate to all residents of the district, not just those holding progressive stances, but supporting and framing his positions in a way so that they could be supported by residents of the district as well.
That same approach to how Schneider was able to keep the seat blue extends to why Harstein believes Schneider has kept the trust of voters in the district. Schneider “understands the realities of getting things done” and while he “supports the principles” of progressive ideas, he won’t spend energy on legislation that has no chance of passing in a closely divided Congress. Remarking about the ongoing struggle of Democrats to pass an infrastructure bill, Harstein said that “people care about what is going to be accomplished … If we get nothing done, we will lose big.”
Victor Shi, a 2020 Biden delegate from Illinois’s 10th Congressional District who serves as co-host of the Intergenerational Politics Podcast, and who has previously worked with Schneider and the local Tenth Dems organization, hit upon similar themes when discussing the district. Noting the back and forth between Dold and Schneider, Shi pointed to 2016 as when the district finally solidified as a blue district, in part due to the groundwork done by Schneider’s team and in part due to Donald Trump’s rhetoric “changing the perception of Republicans in the district” — even self-proclaimed moderate Republicans like Dold.
Yet, despite noting that the district has solidified as a blue district, Shi said in an interview with the HPR that “the issues [that voters care about] are not so much what you would see in New York … [With] the tension you are seeing playing in the Democratic Party … where the 10th Congressional District happens to stand is not so much on the left leaning issues.” He suggested Schneider’s stances on wedge issues such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All “reflects the general sentiment of the 10th Congressional District.”
Shi contrasted the voters in the 10th Congressional District with voters in other blue areas, saying that voters “may not be comfortable with the far-left issues quite yet.” He referenced how the district has a higher percentage of Asian Americans than many other congressional districts, and that “a lot of Asians in the district are motivated a lot by education and more traditionally conservative values on economics.” Consequently, a combination of the racial demographics and the general preponderance of upper middle-class voters in the district leads to a “tendency for voters to be against high taxes or raising the minimum wage” or other related economic issues. In Shi’s view, Schneider’s stances on these economic issues may be out of line with more progressive members of Congress, but they accurately reflect the views of his constituents.
As a result, Shi claims that Schneider’s moderate record, in combination with how available he makes himself to constituents, is precisely the reason why he was able to flip the district and has been reelected easily. “Brad has established that trust with the voters and he’s really proven himself as a moderate member in Congress willing to work across the aisle.”
Shi cast doubt on whether in an environment where Democrats controlled more seats in Congress, the 10th Congressional District would send a more progressive representative. “There is an expectation from 10th District voters that their candidate, whatever party they may identify as, is someone who goes to Congress and works across the aisle.” Similar to Mayor Hartstein, he echoed the praise of Schneider as a pragmatic politician who, although he may lean to the left, generally tries to work for the most realistic solution.
Progressive Hopes?
After his failed run in the Democratic primary against Schneider in 2012, Ilya Sheyman served as Executive Director of MoveOn, a nationwide organization supporting progressive candidates and causes up and down the ballot. Sheyman presented a much more optimistic view about the future of progressives in the 10th Congressional District.
In contrast to the characterization of the 10th Congressional District as a moderate district, Sheyman claimed in an interview with the HPR that it “has been a very progressive-minded district that has become more and more progressive over the past ten years.” He explained the three Republican members of Congress who represented the district “did everything possible to try to be seen as moderate as possible … whether trying to claim they were pro-choice despite a voting record that didn’t live up to that or trying to get support around their environmental record or their votes on LGBTQ rights.” Pointing to those moderate records, Sheyman claimed the “only Republican who could win was one who distanced themselves from their party and ran to the left as much as possible, and frankly tried to pretend to be a Democrat.”
Sheyman also disagreed with the notion that the affluence of the district meant that the representative needed to be necessarily fiscally moderate. “This is one of the most economically diverse districts in the country,” said Sheyman, pointing out how the district spans very affluent suburban areas such as Highland Park and Lake Forest to more working class areas such as North Chicago, Waukegan, and Zion. In his mind, the main reason the district hasn’t elected a progressive Democratic representative is because Brad Schneider has been the only Democrat elected in the district in recent history and “primaries against incumbents are just very rare.”
Despite noting the rarity of primary challenges to incumbents, Sheyman nonetheless suggested that the district was likely one of the top 10 districts nationwide “where there is space for a progressive primary challenger who can win the primary and go on to win the general.” When asked why Schneider had not faced a strong primary challenge thus far, Sheyman mentioned how not only are primary challenges extremely difficult and rare, the Democratic Party was still coming out of an “existential moment” caused by the ascension of President Trump, which led to the party uniting as an opposition to Trump. “The real test comes now, where are you on negotiating prescription drug prices, where are you on expanding healthcare access to millions of people.” Sheyman suggested progressives not read too much into Broad’s 2020 loss, pointing out how in the end there was no challenger to Schneider on the ballot, and a primary challenge can not be tested until it actually exists.
“The district looks much more like Jan Schakowsky’s district right now than it does like Sean Casten’s or Lauren Underwood’s,” said Sheyman, contrasting the progressive Schakowsky from a solid-blue congressional district to the more moderate Casten and Underwood who narrowly flipped Republican seats in 2018. Sheyman referenced how, as a result of redistricting, “the 10th district will look very different next year,” and as a result, “for Brad to avoid a primary, he will need to be responsive to some of those dynamics.”
Sheyman then pointed out how many of the countywide and township positions in the area were held by Republicans 10 or 15 years ago, but the Democrats now control most of those same positions, and referenced this as a marker for whether there was the bench available at the local level for a progressive challenge. “Where they would come out on federal issues, depends on the person, but there is now both the bench and the recognition that this is a winnable seat.” Referencing his own 2012 run, Sheyman claimed that since the seat had been held by a Republican for so long, there was hesitance for primary voters to select a more progressive candidate. “Now I don’t think there is anyone in the country, Democrat or Republican, that thinks a Democrat can’t win this seat.”
Now that it has become clear that the district is solidly Democratic, Sheyman says, “the question is what kind of Democrat do you want?” Pointing at the major progressive advances in Illinois under Gov. J.B. Pritzker in recent years, such as marijuana legalization, new climate legislation, and expanded abortion rights, Sheyman noted that “there is a lot of organizers and advocates who made those statewide wins possible” who could use their credibility to then transition to a run for Congress.
Speaking broadly about the idea of a progressive primary challenge, Sheyman said “it only seems possible once it’s real.” He brought up the insurgent victories of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Cori Bush, and Jamaal Bowman, saying, “They were seen as impossible until they were seen as inevitable.” In the absence of alternatives, voters will see no reason to not continue supporting their incumbent, and as a result until someone presents an alternative on the ballot, there will be no change.
“When you look at the kinds of positions voters hold around making sure the wealthy pay their fair share, making sure that we expand healthcare to cover every single person in the country … there is a pretty yawning gap between where Democratic voters are in the 10th and their existing member of Congress.”
Sheyman stressed the importance of a progressive primary challenger establishing credibility on the local level, “saying there is a bench full of organizers and advocates with proven track records who can run and say I’m not just going to be a vote, I’m going to be a leader.” Drawing on his experience at MoveOn, Sheyman said that national progressive organizations only got involved once it was clear that the candidate had a local base of support. The progressive challenger can’t be determined by nationwide organizations, “it has to start at the district.” “I firmly believe that [the 10th District] is incredibly ripe for a more progressive congressman, but it has to be a real human being.”
Sheyman ruled out any such primary challenge himself, pointing towards his two young children and how he is in a different place than he was when he first ran for the district in 2012. Nevertheless, he reiterated, “[The 10th] is a district that can definitely elect a progressive. “
“The district deserves someone who leads and votes much more like a Jan Schakowsky than it has now.”
Image by Chris Pagan is licensed under the Unsplash License.
