Lauren Underwood

As the campaigns of Democratic 14th Congressional District incumbent Lauren Underwood and Republican challenger James Marter gear up for the post-Labor Day election sprint, they have both found themselves in the spotlight, though of distinctly different sorts. 

Meanwhile, Underwood seldom mentions Marter publicly, while Marter has been relentless and increasingly caustic, castigating Underwood for a litany of alleged faults.  

Underwood, who enjoyed a roughly 25-to-1 cash advantage over Marter as of June 30, and has outspent him 17-to-1 so far, enjoyed three minutes on stage on the first night at the Democratic National Convention last week in Chicago. A registered nurse who has made healthcare her main focus during her six years in Congress, she spoke on the COVID-19 crisis, taking aim at former President Donald Trump, not Marter. 

Underwood hit Trump hard in her first two sentences, saying, “COVID was the worst public health crisis in a century. Donald Trump failed us.” 

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, she said, “got it under control.” Trump, she said, responded to COVID by saying “It is what it is.“ Biden and Harris, she said, responded with “Help is on the way.”  

With brief, simple phrasing, Underwod opined on the ways the White House and Congressional Democrats responded to the needs of Americans.  

“Democrats in Congress tried to lower the costs of healthcare,” she said. “Donald Trump tried to take our healthcare away.”  

“We tried to expand Social Security and Medicare. Donald Trump tried to cut them. Year, after year, after year.”  

“He took the COVID crisis and turned it into a catastrophe. We can never let him be our president again.” 

James Marter

Marter, meanwhile, has been hosting a local radio show on Aurora-based WBIG AM 1280 for two hours on Saturday mornings. He’s also taken to posting a series of Facebook posts heavy on capital letters and exclamation points, attacking Underwood for a litany of alleged faults, dark motivations and unAmerican goals. 

In a July post, Marter opined that “Underwood is for illegals!! Jim Marter is for Americans!!” He has also lambasted her as a far left extremist and “beholden to the culture of death …” one of many baseless accusations he’s made.  

“As you hear reports of the DNC this week and events in Chicago. Understand this is who my opponent is, LEFT of the SQUAD, radical socialist DEMOCRAT Lauren Underwood,” Marter wrote.   

“She fundamentally stands against LIFE, is beholden to the culture of death, she is against the FREE markets and supports communist style price controls. She wants to take away the rights of individual Americans to protect themselves, and supports radical unconstitutional usurpation of the BILL of RIGHTS.  She supports men in women’s sports, locker rooms, and bathrooms.”  

“She supports trampling of parents rights, from forced medical procedures to the outright taking children from their parents to be turned over to medical debauchery and mutilation.” 

“Don’t vote for someone who is LEFT of the SQUAD!” he concluded. 

When not attempting to skewer Underwood on social media, and presumable radio, Marter has been traveling throughout the 14th District, walking in parades, talking with voters at summer picnics and at various meet ’n’ greets and knocking on doors. 

But Marter’s radio show is not the only spotlight illuminating his views. He’s also attracted the attention of an online political fact-checking/commentary site called Will County Clown Car, which primarily focuses on Will County (“Will County GOP: Still refusing to learn anything. Ever.”). But the 14th Congressional District also covers parts of Kane County, making him a target for the group’s lacerating commentary. 

The Clown Car site says it is committed to “Tracking and mocking right-wing extremism, misinformation and propaganda in Will County, IL, and surrounding areas.” It has taken Marter to task in half a dozen post since March, ridiculing him as a failed candidate for Congress in 2018, 2020 and 2022.  

“Like so many #MAGA Republicans running for office in 2024,” the Clown Car opined recently, “IL-14 Republican congressional candidate and Christian Republican congressional candidate and Christian Nationalist, James Marter, is a conspiracy theorist, a far right-wing extremist, and yes — a weirdo, too.” 

The group vowed to continue tracking Marter’s comments through election day, as, it said, “… his campaign continues to flail along.”