Dan McConchie, a national legislative expert

Dan McConchie, a national legislative expert, was never comfortable declaring victory in the Republican primary for the 26^th state Senate seat as long as an unknown number of ballots still sat in the basement of the McHenry County Building.

Because of voting machine issues Election Day morning at many McHenry County precincts, polls were ordered open for 90 minutes past the normal 7 p.m. voting cutoff. Those votes, labeled provisional ballots, were not counted with other Election Day ballots and were not all counted until Friday, three days after voting concluded.

“In the end, we were … ahead. The problem was we had no idea — even the (county) clerk had no idea — how many votes were in the basement. We didn’t know whether it was hundreds or thousands,” McConchie said. “I did not declare victory out of caution, not knowing what was going on. Internally, we were confident but there was a big X factor. I did not want to take anything for granted.”

Unofficial final totals from Lake, McHenry, Cook and Kane counties had McConchie topping Casey Urlacher, brother of former Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher, by more than 500 votes.

Final McHenry County numbers did go Urlacher’s way, with him winning the county by nearly 700 votes. However, McConchie of Hawthorne Woods, topped Urlacher by more than 1,100 votes in Lake to net him the primary victory.

Unofficial totals in the three-man race had McConchie with 11,101 votes, Urlacher, who is also the mayor of Mettawa, with 10,594 votes, and Martin McLaughlin, village president of Barrington Hills, with 9,389 votes.

The Republican nominee said he was surprised by the turnout in the race being 50 percent higher than expected. He said his campaign had projected 23,000 or 24,000 voters in the district to take Republican ballots and more than 36,000 people voted in the GOP primary.

“These were people who were not on anyone’s radar,” McConchie said. “They did not get calls, they did not get mailers and they still did their research … We were able to keep a four-point lead throughout. A lot of people did their homework and saw through the attacks of my opponents and picked me to best represent them in Springfield.”

He said people heading to the polls to vote for presidential candidate Donald Trump may have played a big role in the higher-than-expected turnout. He said when absentee votes were counted, his campaign staffers saw that a lot of people under-voted — voting for president and not anything else.

Right now, McConchie does not have a General Election opponent. Democrats have until June to slate an opponent in the race. McConchie has heard that the Illinois Democratic Party will look at what  races it needs to defend before deciding on whether to run someone in the 26^th Senate District.

McConchie said he has no idea what the Democrats will do, but is already preparing for a General Election contest.

If a Democrat is slated against him, McConchie will stick with what worked in the primary.

“I don’t think I will do a lot different,” McConchie said. “We ran a strong race. We will do door-to-door campaigning, phone banking, mailings. We will do all we that was necessary in the primary to defeat two local mayors who had support, one with a famous last name.

“With the higher turnout, I am proud of our performance. We have a very strong campaign. For the fall, we will take what we did in the primary to 2.0.”

If he doesn’t have a November opponent, McConchie said he will work to help other “reform-minded legislators” get elected.

“We need people who will not blindly support House Speaker (Michael) Madigan,” McConchie said. “There are a lot of opportunities to do the right thing now and Speaker Madigan has said he is unwilling to negotiate until the state runs out of money. That is not leadership. We need fundamental reforms and I need partners in doing that.”

— McConchie wins GOP race for 26th state Senate seat —