Turning out voters in IL-06
Ben Barker, a Progressive Turnout Project Field Representative in Illinois’ 6th Congressional District (IL-06), does not mince words. A win for the voters in IL-06, he says, “would mean that they’ll finally be getting a representative who isn’t a spineless corporate shill. I’m sure they’ll also appreciate having a representative who will actually talk and meet with them, and treat them like, you know, constituents.”
Illinois’ 6th Congressional District has been represented by Republican Peter Roskam since 2006. FiveThirtyEight Politics reports that Roskam has voted in favor of President Trump’s position 94.6% of the time – a reality that’s proving difficult for Roskam to justify in a district that favored Hillary Clinton by 7 points in 2016. 
Roskam is anti-abortion, and, despite rhetoric to the contrary, anti-immigrant. He’s voted in support of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, and is in favor of expanding the government’s authority to deport immigrants suspected of illegal activity; he also voted for penalizing “sanctuary” cities and localities.
Democratic challenger Sean Casten, a scientist and small business owner, is very effectively using Roskam’s voting record against him, and a number of signs point toward a Casten win on Election Day. Former President Barack Obama officially endorsed Casten in his first round of midterm endorsements, released August 1st. In mid-October, The Cook Political Report changed its rating of the race for Illinois’ 6th Congressional District from Toss Up to Lean Democratic.
“After watching a few clips of Casten, I knew the race was winnable and worth investing my time,” says Ben, who predicts that Casten will win by 1-2 points.
Ben has worked on a number of political campaigns in the past, including canvassing for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. More recently, in the spring he “did field work for Fritz Kaegi’s successful bid for Cook County Assessor” – an experience that inspired Ben “to find another opportunity to help move Progressive values forward electorally.”
The Cook Political Report characterizes IL-06 as “high-end Chicago suburbs,” but Ben’s time on the ground actually suggests greater socioeconomic diversity within the District.
“A big takeaway from the experience is how unfathomable it is that communities in such close proximity to each other have such disparate outcomes,” Ben says. “One day I’m knocking on [the doors of] multi-million-dollar-McMansions and the next day I’m in a trailer park. It takes what I know to be true in theory and forces me to grapple with the real-world impact of our unjust status quo.”
Ben has found there’s no better antidote to the grief of such injustice than interacting with voters who have histories of non-participation in past elections – often disenfranchised voters – and “getting them to sincerely commit to vote.”
“I’m sure a few will still miss,” he says, “but I know in my heart that many of these people will make it, and [that] they wouldn’t have if it weren’t for us inspiring them to finally make their voice heard – that’s what it’s all about.”
