Garcia, Anaya, Fraustro-Sandoval Notch Wins in Local Elections

Jesus "Chuy" GarciaLocal leaders Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, Alma Anaya and Beatriz Fraustro-Sandoval won their election contests on Tuesday, March 20, setting Garcia and Anaya up as leading candidates for their offices in the November 20 general election and placing Fraustro-Sandoval on the 14th Subcircuit of Cook County as judge.

Garcia easily won the Democratic primary for the 4th District U.S. House of Representatives, winning more than double the votes of both of his challengers. He will face Republican Mark Lorch of Riverside in November.

Alma AnayaAlma Anaya bested fiercely contested efforts from candidate Angeles "Angie" Sandoval to win the Democratic primary for the 7th District Cook County Commissioner position. In Democrat-dominated Cook County, this means she is the likely commissioner after the November general election.

Beatriz Fraustro-SandovalGarcia, Anaya and Fraustro-Sandoval are part of a slate of candidates that were heavily supported in the McKinley Park neighborhood by the 12th Ward Independent Political Organization (IPO) and Illinois 2nd District State Representative Theresa Mah, who ran unopposed in the primary.

Other candidates on the 12th Ward IPO slate included Aaron Ortiz, who scored a stunning upset over longtime incumbent Dan Burke for the Illinois House 1st District seat, and Marie Newman, who lost her bid to oust incumbent Dan Lipinski from his seat in U.S. Congress. IPO-endorsed Fritz Kaegi won the race for Cook County Assessor, ousting embattled incumbent Joseph Berrios.

Sandoval's loss and the ouster of Burke and Berrios may represent harbingers of change for the Chicago-area Democratic Party: All were connected to Democratic "machine" politics tied to existing family dynasties, an entrenched network of local party support and career politicians like Mike Madigan, speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives.

The office of 12th Ward Alderman George Cardenas provided financial and personnel help to support the Garcia and Anaya campaigns, and he said it was important to work together to "derail machine politics" in the 12th Ward and across the city. "It was an historic moment not just for Latinos, but for all Chicagoans," Cardenas said.

According to media reports, Cook County Clerk David Orr noted the intensity of the campaigning on the Southwest Side, even related violence, including police responding to a scuffle involving campaign signs near a polling location in the 3600 block of South Hoyne Street in the McKinley Park neighborhood.