{"id":72648,"date":"2018-10-31T07:41:53","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T12:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=72648"},"modified":"2018-10-31T22:57:12","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T03:57:12","slug":"the-battleground-in-suburbia-illinoiss-6th-congressional-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-battleground-in-suburbia-illinoiss-6th-congressional-district\/","title":{"rendered":"The battleground in suburbia: Illinois’s 6th Congressional District"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Valerie Nikolas<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

The congressional race is tightening in Illinois\u2019s 6th District as Democrats vie for control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Incumbent Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) is fighting to keep his seat against Democratic contender Sean Casten. If elected, this would be the clean energy executive\u2019s first time holding public office.<\/p>\n

With the midterm elections barely one week away, a\u00a0New York Times poll<\/a> from Oct. 26 shows Casten leading Roskam 45 to 44 percent, well within the margin of error. Casten\u2019s victory is not certain, but this race is closer than any of Roskam\u2019s previous six winning campaigns for Congress.<\/p>\n

This race, which echoes battles in suburbs across the country, is one of the most closely watched nationwide. Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to take control the House for the first time since 2011.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In targeting Roskam, they see a district where Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton beat Republican Donald Trump by seven percentage points after her more liberal rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) won the Democratic primary. The 6th<\/sup> District is one of 23 so-called split districts nationwide where that happened.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Illinois’s 6th Congressional District, which includes parts of Cook, DuPage, Lake, Kane and McHenry counties. (WTTW)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Located just northwest of Chicago, the district is a microcosm of Midwestern suburbia. It\u2019s home to such upscale towns as Barrington, Naperville, Wheaton and Lake Zurich. Eighty-five percent of residents are white and nearly half are college-educated. With a median household income of $85,655, it has been reported as the\u00a0highest-income district<\/a>\u00a0in Illinois. Both Roskam and Casten are longtime residents.<\/p>\n

Roskam, 57, grew up in the district and first won election in 2006, when he defeated current U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D). He previously served in the Illinois state senate and house. The former lawyer is currently chairman for the House Ways and Means Committee\u2019s subcommittee on tax policy. He is also co-chair of the Republican Israel Caucus and the U.S.-Korea Working Group.<\/p>\n

In the 2016 election, Roskam\u00a0won his district by 64,964 votes<\/a>\u00a0\u201418 percent \u2014 over Democrat Amanda Howland. Before the July 26 debate with Casten he had not debated an opponent since 2008.<\/p>\n

Sean Casten, 46, contends that his background of 16 years as a clean energy entrepreneur will inform his decision-making. The slogan on his website reads, \u201cSean Casten will fight for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

During much of his campaign Casten has targeted young voters. \u201cThe issues that are most important to younger voters \u2013 climate change, student loan debt, gun violence and the opioid epidemic \u2013 are often not the issues raised by older, more regular voters,\u201d Casten said. \u201cMy campaign has worked hard during this campaign not only to reach out to younger voters, but also to understand and write detailed positions on the issues too frequently ignored by our political process.”<\/p>\n

The candidates differ fundamentally on taxes, such as the Republican-led 2017 tax law that offered its most significant cuts to wealthy Americans and corporations. Roskam, a co-author of the bill, says that the act provides $4,600 in income tax relief to families in the district making $135,000 a year. Casten is concerned about adding an estimated $1 trillion to the federal budget deficit and the \u201chistorically high levels\u201d of wealth inequality that these cuts could intensify.<\/p>\n

On health care, a critical issue nationwide in the midterm elections, Casten wants to expand the number of people who receive taxpayer-funded health care. Roskam has called the Affordable Care Act \u201ca failure\u201d and voted repeatedly to repeal it.<\/p>\n

Both candidates say they will tackle the opioid crisis. In May 2018 Roskam introduced a\u00a0series of bipartisan bills<\/a>\u00a0intended to make physicians\u2019 prescribing practices stricter. Casten supports<\/a> expanding health care to cover treatment for opioid addiction.<\/p>\n

Casten, whose company Recycled Energy Development\u2019s mission is to profitably reduce greenhouse gasses through recovering otherwise wasted energy, said his top priority if elected will be finding solutions to climate change. He called climate change \u201cthe existential challenge of our lifetime<\/a>.\u201d Casten\u2019s proposed initiatives include modernizing the Clean Air Act<\/a> to make standards more strict and introducing a fossil energy reduction standard that would mandate higher levels of renewable energy on a national scale.<\/p>\n

Casten supports nationwide carbon regulation, including putting a price on carbon emissions. Roskam is opposed to such a tax and thinks the private sector should address the issue. Both candidates oppose<\/a> Donald Trump\u2019s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Agreement.<\/p>\n

In an election where many Republicans are being judged on their support or opposition to President Trump, Roskam has voted with Donald Trump 95 percent of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The candidates squared off regarding Donald Trump in their final televised debate on Oct. 22<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although he says he wishes the president would \u201cstop tweeting,\u201d Roskam also said, “My responsibility is to look at things the administration is doing and when they help the district to work to get those things done. When they\u2019re adverse to the district, to work against them.”<\/p>\n

In that debate Casten claimed that Roskam, \u201cruns a campaign that\u2019s modeled after Donald Trump\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n

Casten has called Trump \u201cthe worst president of our generation\u201d and vowed to \u201cstand up to Donald Trump when his policies hurt our district.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Congressional candidates Sean Casten (left) and Peter Roskam at their Oct. 22 debate on WTTW’s Chicago Tonight. (WTTW)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Valerie Nikolas Medill Reports The congressional race is tightening in Illinois\u2019s 6th District as Democrats vie for control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Incumbent Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) is fighting to keep his seat against Democratic contender Sean Casten. If elected, this would be the clean energy executive\u2019s first time holding public office. With […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":512,"featured_media":72723,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4014,4447],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-election-2018","category-fall-2018"],"yoast_head":"\nThe battleground in suburbia: Illinois's 6th Congressional District - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-battleground-in-suburbia-illinoiss-6th-congressional-district\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The battleground in suburbia: Illinois's 6th Congressional District - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Valerie Nikolas Medill Reports The congressional race is tightening in Illinois\u2019s 6th District as Democrats vie for control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Incumbent Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) is fighting to keep his seat against Democratic contender Sean Casten. If elected, this would be the clean energy executive\u2019s first time holding public office. 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