Challenger Warren defeats incumbent Gainer for seat on Cook County Board in North-Northwest Side district

by CYRYL JAKUBOWSKI

Lakefront voters bested Northwest Siders and elected engineer Drake Warren in the primary to replace incumbent commissioner Bridget Gainer on the Cook County Board in the 10^th District.

Warren received 31,718 votes, or 56.3 percent, of the total votes cast in the city and suburbs, and Gainer received 24,604 votes, or 43.7 percent, according to unofficial election results. The district spans from the North Side and the Lakefront to the Far Northwest Side and locally includes Edgebrook and Sauganash, and parts of Jefferson Park and Gladstone Park.  

Warren, an industrial engineer and an organizer, said he was excited on election night. “We didn’t want to put the cart before the horse so we waited until 100 percent of the precincts were reporting, and then we got so excited.”

“This is a whole year of work,” he said about his campaign. “Hundreds of people participated in our success and there were a lot of people who worked on this campaign.” He said that mobilizing and hitting the ground running “even in terrible weather” were keys to success. He was supported by several progressive organizations including Equality Illinois, United Northwest Side and Abundant Housing Illinois.

“I like to meet the voters and one of the most exciting things about the campaign was going door-to-door,” Warren said. “I think people remembered that on Election Day.”

He said there are no shortcuts to creating change and the real work would be starting now. Exhausted from final days of campaigning, Warren said in an interview that the biggest priority would be the county healthcare system because a lot of people may lose coverage under the Trump administration. His website also lists priorities like expanding housing supply and ethics reform, and responding to federal immigration enforcement. He would like to expand healthcare coverage under the county health system.

Warren won in the 32^nd, 40^th, 43^rd, 44^th, 46^th, 47^th, 48^th and 50^th wards, according to unofficial results. Gainer only won the Northwest Side’s 39^th, 41^st and 45^th wards. In the 39^th Ward, she received 2,433 votes compared to 1,792 for Warren. In the 41^st she received 1,521 votes to 1,077 for Warren, and in the 45^th Ward, Gainer got 2,731 votes versus 2,009 votes for Warren.

Gainer’s office said the commissioner was “not talking at this time.” Gainer was appointed to the county board in 2009 to finish the term of Democrat Mike Quigley, who was elected to the 5th U.S. House District seat formerly held by Rahm Emanuel. Before joining the board, she was an executive with the Aon Corporation and held administrative positions with the Chicago Park District and in the city budget office.

Warren said that as of now the race is uncontested for the Nov. 6 general election. He said he would be working full time and showing up to every meeting if elected and that he is excited to work with a county board that will have several new members. Also on the Northwest Side, primary winner Elizabeth Granato in the 12^th District (replacing Bridget Degnen) will face Republican Xiaoli “Alice” Hu in November.

“I was surprised going door-to-door in the district that the ‘common theme’ for everyone was local property taxes and the cost of living,” Warren said. He said that was the unifying theme he heard and also people were upset about ICE activities in their communities.

“I know the Northwest Side has a different political reputation than the Lakefront, but the office of the commissioner deals with non-partisan issues such as better service delivery and services in general and that appealed to anyone no matter their politics,” Warren said.

In an interview with the Windy City Times, he stated that he would be the first pansexual member on the Cook County Board. Representing large swaths of the North Side and the Lakefront, he said that LGBTQ+ issues need representation at the county level. He told Windy City at the time that LGBTQ+ representation was meaningful but not an exclusive dimension of his campaign.

“This is a cool opportunity to reform the county board and show people the important work it does and the power it has,” Warren told Nadig Newspapers.

In other Northwest Side election news, state Representative Jaime Andrade lost in the 40^th Illinois House District 6,374-8,019 to Miguel Alvelo-Rivera. Andrade was picked to replace former State Representative Deb Mell in the Illinois General Assembly in 2013, and won election in 2014.

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