Content warning: This story contains mentions of sexual misconduct.
When Northbrook, Illinois, resident T.J. Brown was five years old, his father took him to a voting booth gymnasium early one morning in 1980. Brown remembers his father being “all charged up” to vote for former President Ronald Reagan.
Brown grew up in a Republican household but began to hold conservative viewpoints when he entered high school. He said a next-door neighbor, who was an exchange student from Germany, often spoke about wishing his country would reunify during the Cold War.
A year later, Reagan delivered his “Tear Down This Wall” speech in 1987 at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin. That moment resonated with Brown, who at 50 years old now serves as the Northfield Township Republican committeeperson.
“You saw communism fall, and you saw what the American system yielded in innovation and in opportunity and just this unlimited potential,” he said. “I probably identify as a Reagan Republican because of that.”
But Brown said he does not plan to vote for any of the candidates running for the Illinois’ 9th Congressional District seat in the March 17 Republican primary.
And Brown isn’t alone.
In a district where a Republican has not held the seat since 1949, some Republican voters say they feel lukewarm about the candidates seeking the party’s nomination. Yet Republican candidates continue to run in the race to represent Illinois’ 9th District, a historically Democratic seat where the general election is widely expected to favor the Democratic nominee.
U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Evanston), who has held the seat since 1998, announced her retirement in May. The race to replace her has drawn widespread attention for its sprawling Democratic field that features 15 candidates. But far less focus has been paid to the Republican contest, where just four candidates are vying for the party’s nomination.
In the fall, paraprofessional Rocío Cleveland, former software developer Paul Friedman, IT consultant Mark Su and pastor John Elleson filed for a chance to represent the district. However, their chances of winning the general election in November are slim.
Gerrymandering plays a role, said Pritzker Prof. Michael Kang, by putting a majority of the seats out of play.
According to a 2024 Redistricting Report Card, Illinois’ overall grade is an “F” with a significant Democratic advantage relative to other maps that could have been drawn.
The trend is also playing out locally. Before the 2020 U.S. Census, Illinois Democrats held 13 congressional seats to the Republicans’ five. After losing a seat due to population decline, the 2021 redistricting plan reduced Republican representation from five seats to three and expanded Democratic districts to 14.
Still, Republican candidates choose to run.
Running against the odds
One of them is Cleveland, who said she was motivated to run for Congress after what she described as a “calling from God” that she must fulfill.
She views her campaign as a free platform to “expose all the evil” and bring it to light. In a district where Republican candidates often fly under the radar, she said she has tried to draw notice by posting what she described as “scandalous videos.”
At a November candidate forum in Northbrook, Illinois, Cleveland said she attempted to give a “care package” containing holy water, cat food and a pickle, among other items, to Democratic contender and progressive content creator Kat Abughazaleh, for use in prison following her federal indictment.
Cleveland said actions like that help bring attention to her campaign, and if she were to win the primary election, she would campaign similarly during the general election. She added she would “amp it up even more” by exposing “even more dirt on everyone.”
“I think as a conservative we need to call out the people that are doing bad things in our party, and I’m that person that the Illinois Republican Party is trying to silence,” she said.
Rather than relying on “cheap shots,” Elleson said he entered the race believing Republican voters in the district deserved a “serious” candidate on the ballot, even if the odds of victory remain slim.
He said the Democratic nominee should still face a challenge and Republicans need a “good horse” in the race.
Friedman offered a more pragmatic reason for running. As a former software developer, he said he has taken three pay cuts because his chosen career is declining with artificial intelligence.
He said he needs a job and believes he can fill the seat better than “most people that are on the ballot.”
Friedman said the campaign offers a chance to raise issues about what he sees as dysfunction in Congress, citing that the last time Congress passed all 12 of its required appropriations bills on time was in 1997.
“The fact that I could be one of two major public candidates and have a voice for six months to just say we need structural reform in Congress, I’ll take that six months,” he said. “I’ll take that bully pulpit.”
Su, meanwhile, described his campaign as a “historical opportunity” following Schakowsky’s retirement after 28 years in office.
Republican voters remain unconvinced
But for some Republican voters in the district, these motivations have failed to earn their support. For Brown, each candidate presents different concerns.
“I’m not as enamored with any of the candidates as I’ve been with other candidates in the 9th (District) of the past,” he said.
He said Cleveland’s campaign appears focused on insulting and attacking her opponents with personal statements rather than showing the ability to run a successful race where she will face heavy headwinds against the Democratic nominee.
Cook County Republican Party Chairman Aaron Del Mar agreed, adding Cleveland has too much “negativity” and lacks “common sense.”
“She’s not someone that we would want to support, and in fact, she hurts the Republican brand,” he said.
In response, Cleveland said that Del Mar was “deflecting,” adding she will “not be silent.”
“(Del Mar) can speak trash about me all he wants but everyone knows who he really is, and that’s where I stand,” she told The Daily on Monday.
Brown has also questioned some of Su’s policy positions, saying he has been unable to get clarification on them. He said he was also “shocked” to learn that Friedman appears on North Carolina’s Sex Offender and Public Protection registry.
In 1999, Friedman was charged with misdemeanor fourth-degree sexual conduct involving a 13-year-old girl in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as reported by The Daily on Jan. 21.
Friedman acknowledged he “kissed” the girl and said it was “a greeting,” but Brown said the background was a “nonstarter” for him.
As for Elleson, Brown said he agrees with many of his policy positions but does not believe he has run a meaningful campaign that will drive interest among the few Republicans in the district.
“Can you run some type of vigorous race? That’s what I’d like to have as someone who can interest our conservatives in the 9th District,” he said. “Get them to come out and vote for them, to want to give to them.”
This reflects a concerted effort by the Niles Township GOP, the Northfield Township Republican Organization and the Chicago Northside Republican Committee to not endorse any of the four candidates, Brown said.
One reason, Brown said, is a lack of campaign resources. According to Federal Election Commission filings, Su has raised the most among the Republican field with just over $24,000, while Friedman reported just under $5,000. Cleveland and Elleson reported no receipts.
Because of the nature of the congressional map, Brown said candidates need to reach a vast number of voters in a district that largely favors Democrats. To reach those people, he said, “You need money.”
“You need money for canvassers. You need money to advertise. You need money for outreach,” he said.
This struggle is not new. Former Republican 9th Congressional District candidate Seth Alan Cohen, who received nearly 32% of the vote in the 2024 general election, said fundraising was his biggest campaigning challenge. He raised just over $12,000, which he said proved “extremely hard.”
He added that the Republican candidate needs to be independently wealthy, but most people won’t take the risk of running due to the district’s partisan makeup.
“Raising money is probably the largest issue, and you don’t exist if you can’t get your face in front of people, and you can’t do that unless you have money,” he said.
While Brown does not plan to vote in this primary, he said he intends to vote for the Republican nominee in the Nov. 3 general election.
Niles Township Republicans Treasurer Brian O’Donnell said he is also not leaning toward any one candidate but will not support a Democrat because a Republican would better represent his views.
As a Republican in this district, he knows the odds of winning the general election are low, but such droughts aren’t foreign to him.
“Look at the Cubs fans who had to wait from 1908 to 2016 to wait for their team to win a world championship,” he said. “You got to have faith.”
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