Laura Fine Elected To State Senate Over Joan McCarthy Lasonde

COOK COUNTY, IL — A sitting Democratic state representative defeated a former Republican congressional candidate for an open state Senate seat in northern Cook County. Glenview Democrat Rep. Laura Fine, who has represented the 17th District in the Illinois House since 2013, earned more than twice as many votes as Wilmette Republican Joan McCarthy Lasonde, a former marketing executive and member of the board of the Illinois Crime Commission. Lasonde is a founding member of the conservative women's group Policy Circle and previously challenged U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the 2016 congressional election, earning about a third of the vote. Fine is a former teacher and Northfield Township Clerk who has previously worked in broadcast news at various Midwest media outlets.

The 9th District includes all of Evanston, Kenilworth, Northfield, Wilmette and Winnetka and parts of Deerfield, Glencoe, Glenview, Morton Grove and Northbrook. The seat is being vacated by two-term Sen. Daniel Biss, who lost the Democratic primary to J.B. Pritzker, coming in second with less than 27 percent of the vote.

Lasonde, 52, has been outraised by her Democratic opponent by a roughly five to one margin. Fine started the month of October with nearly $166,000 and has added $67,760 in the final five weeks of the campaign. Last quarter, her campaign spent about $46,000, while Lasonde, who started the quarter with $25,000 in the bank and added nearly $20,000 more, spent about $32,500 through the end of September.

Fine's biggest contributor this cycle has been $17,500 from the Illinois Political Action Committee for Education, although she has previously received more than $131,000 from the Democratic Majority and Democratic Party of Illinois PACs, both controlled by Speaker Mike Madigan. Lasonde's biggest contributions have been $13,700 from Policy Circle founder Sylvie Légère and her husband Todd Ricketts, Chicago Cubs co-owner and national Republican finance committee chair and $11,500 from the campaign committee of former Comptroller Leslie Munger.

Fine, 51, who announced her candidacy last July, was endorsed by the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. In candidate surveys, Fine identified health care reform, affordable higher education, juvenile justice reform, "common sense gun reforms," and environmental protections as top priorities. Lasonde said her priorities would be balancing the state budget, reducing taxes and ending the "corruption of insider politicians."

Election results

Return to Patch Tuesday night for the latest vote tally. Subscribe to free News Alerts for election results. The polls open at 6 a.m. Tuesday and close at 7 p.m. NOTE: Tuesday's results are unofficial and do not include provisional and late absentee ballots.

More About Fine and Lasonde

Read more about these candidates from their campaign websites:

• Laura Fine
• Joan McCarthy Lasonde

More Illinois voting info: Everything To Know About The Illinois 2018 Midterm Elections