Republican Congressional candiate Tonia Khouri speaks at the 59th Annual Aurora Township Lincoln Day Dinner (Chronicle Media photos by Jack McCarthy)

Aurora Township Republicans split evenly between supporting Donald Trump and Marco Rubio as favorites in a presidential straw poll taken last week.

But local GOP members gave a strong home court greeting to congressional candidate Tonia Khouri at the 59th annual Lincoln Day Dinner at Gaslite Manor Banquets in Aurora.

Aurora Township party officials said GOP frontrunner Trump and Rubio, the Florida U.S. Senator, tied as favorites for president with an unspecified number of votes in a pre-banquet straw poll. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was third.

The dinner drew several candidates running for Republican nominations ranging from county offices to Congress in this month’s primary, including Khouri, the banquet’s keynote speaker.

“She has been a longtime supporter of the Aurora Township organization,” said Lindsey Brusky, township GOP chairperson. “She’s a longtime business owner in Aurora, works really hard and she sees what’s going on around us and definitely wants a change.”

Khouri is in a three-way race with Nick Stella and Herman White for the Republican nomination to face incumbent Democratic Rep. Bill Foster in the November general election.

Republican Congressional candiate Nick Stella (above) spoke at the 59th Annual Aurora Township Lincoln Day Dinner (Chronicle Media photos by Jack McCarthy)

“I think now more than ever we Republicans need to unite around our core values to elect Republicans to the state level, the federal level and, of course, a Republican president,” said Khouri, a two-term member of the DuPage County Board who chairs committees on Economic Development and Ad-Hoc Mass Transit.

“I’m a conservative,” she added. “I believe in smaller government, lower taxes, individual responsibility and a strong national defense. I am passionate about protecting our basic freedoms that are coming under attack. … We need more representatives who care about our core values and care about job creation, economic development and growing our private sector.”

While Khouri had top billing for the event, Stella, a physician from Naperville, was also granted speaking time.

“I think that citizens in this country and this district deserve better,” Stella said. “They’re sick and tired of a representative they don’t even know. … (and) to time we get back to conservative values.”

White, who was not at the dinner, is a scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia where Foster also worked for more than two decades. White has picked up local and regional newspaper endorsements.

The 11th District includes portions of Aurora, Naperville and Joliet as well as parts of Kane, DuPage, Kendall and Will counties.

— Aurora Republicans like Trump and Rubio, Khouri states her case for Congress —