Incumbent Eric Sorensen defeated Joe McGraw to earn a second term to represent the 17th Congressional District. (Erick Sorensen Facebook photo)

In an election cycle that saw presidential candidate Kamala Harris underperform her predecessor Joe Biden in the 17th Congressional District vote, Congressman Eric Sorensen turned in a strong electoral performance that has sent him back to Washington D.C. for a second term.

The Associated Press called the race for Sorensen at 3:53 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 6, with him leading by 155,698 votes over former jurist Joe McGraw’s 133,991 with 88 percent of the vote in.

Sorensen’s 7.5 percent margin/21,000-plus vote victory improves on his 52 percent-48 percent/9,285 vote win over Esther Joy King in 2022. His margin stands at 53.8 percent to 46.3 percent, with some mail-in ballots remaining to be counted.

By comparison, Gov. J.B. Pritzker won the 17th Congressional District by just 2 points in 2022, and Democratic Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias lost the vote in the 17th District by 5 points that year.

McGraw, who was the underdog throughout the campaign, did not receive strong support from outside GOP groups, and received far fewer contributions and far less cash than Sorensen. Throughout the campaign, Sorensen raised $4.7 million and spent $2.8 million, far outpacing McGraw. As of Sept. 30, he had five times the number of contributors as McGraw, and those contributions were generally for larger sums.

Sorensen outraised McGraw $4.6 million to $1.3 milliion, has spent $2.8 million, three times McGraw’s $899,796, and has nearly five times the cash on hand as of Oct. 1 as McGraw did $1.8 million to $384,792.

That cash advantage allowed Sorensen to purchase $1.2 million in television ads and more than $380,000 for digital ads.

But money wasn’t the sole reason Sorensen prevailed. The former TV weatherman waged a strongly local campaign that focused on the needs of district constituents and stressed his bipartisan bonafides.

McGraw relentlessly attacked Sorensen, castigating him as out of touch with voters, and suggesting he harms children by exposing them to drag shows. He said Sorensen could not be trusted to keep Illinois’ families safe, and that he “coddles criminals and blames victims.” The Illinois GOP opined that McGraw’s ad “tak(es) extreme leftist Eric Sorensen to task for his out-of-touch positions with Illinois Families.”

McGraw also hammered away at national issues like immigration and America’s Southern border, insisting Sorensen favored allowing a flood of illegal immigrants into the country and valued the needs of foreigners over U.S. citizens.

However, Sorensen, with one exception, stayed focused on his record of constituent services and bipartisanship. He held several online town halls over the spring and summer, including one in which he was joined by Republican officials from two municipalities in the district, who praised him for securing federal grant money for needed improvements in their municipalities.

Sorensen’s willingness to work across the political aisle was recognized by the Republican-friendly Illinois Farm Bureau, which endorsed him in October, citing his status as one of four Democrats to vote to move the federal Farm Bill out of Congressional committee.

Sorensen did go negative in one television ad in September, mocking McGraw for a video of McGraw acknowledging he’s prayed in his judicial chambers before making sentencing decisions on cases before him.

McGraw, who touted his tough-on-crime stance during the campaign, sentenced a former school teacher to four years’ probation for possession of child pornography and 30 months’ probation for the offense of indecent solicitation of a child,” despite the man having exchanged sexually explicit images and a video with a student and propositioned the student between November 2008 and January 2009.

McGraw said that ad misrepresented what happened, insisting the prosecutors and the defense had agreed to probation in a plea agreement.