Elmhurst Resident Loses County Board Seat: Results

ELMHURST, IL — Democrats appear to have taken a majority of the historically Republican County Board in Tuesday's election.

Going into the election, Republicans held an 11-7 edge on the board, along with Republican Chairman Dan Cronin, who is elected at large. In the election, Republicans lost three seats. Sean Noonan of Elmhurst and Bob Larsen of Wheaton fell short, while a Democrat won the seat held by James Healy of Naperville, who did not run again.

Another GOP board member, Tim Elliott of Glen Ellyn, is only 18 votes ahead of his District 4 Democratic opponent, Lynn LaPlante, out of more than 70,000 ballots cast. Early votes are still apparently being counted, but a spokeswoman for the county clerk's didn't return an inquiry Wednesday afternoon about how many ballots are left.

In an email to Patch, LaPlante said she definitely sees victory as a possibility.

"We are feeling very optimistic. And As Joe Biden says, 'Count every vote,'" LaPlante said. "I’m hopeful we will have some information soon on all the outstanding (vote-by-mail) ballots."

As the board currently consists, it is really easy to tell a Republican from a Democrat: All the Republicans are men and the Democrats are women.

But Democrat Greg Schwarze, who is leading Larsen with 50.3 percent of the vote in District 6, appears to have broken the gender trend. District 2's Paula Deacon Garcia is ahead of Noonan, with 50.8 percent. And Democrat Amy Chavez is ahead of Republican Kevin Coyne with 57 percent in District 5

Elected in 2012 as a District 2 board member, Noonan encountered some difficulty earlier this year with his full-time job as a Bloomingdale police officer.

He was suspended as an officer for 20 hours shortly after George Floyd's death in the custody of Minneapolis police. It was after he "liked" a Facebook comment that read, "Sean, as awful as it sounds, until a few rioters are shot dead, and their bodies left in the street for the wolves, there's no message law-abiding people and the officers that protect them can send to these terrorists to instill fear and good behavior in them."

Noonan later explained his post, saying he did not condone the message.

DuPage County election results:

County Board District 1
Donald Puchalski* (R) 54.3%
Zahra Suratwala (D) 45.7%

County Board District 2
Paula Deacon Garcia (D) 50.8%
Sean Noonan* (R) 49.2%

County Board District 3
Brian Krajewski* (R) 51.9%
Gail Cabala-Lowry (D) 48.1%

County Board District 4
Tim Elliott* (R) 50.04%
Lynn LaPlante (D) 49.96%

County Board District 5
Amy Chavez (D) 56.0%
Kevin Coyne (R) 44.0%

County Board District 6
Greg Schwarze (D) 50.3%
Bob Larsen* (R) 49.7%

* — incumbent