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Rep. Cheri Bustos, the veteran Democrat from Illinois and former head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, announced Friday she won t seek reelection next year. Today, following a decade of service in Washington, I am announcing that I will not seek reelection in Congress after completing my fifth term, she wrote on Twitter.
And, in a video accompanying her tweet, the congresswoman explained, I feel it’s time for a new voice.
Bustos, who was first elected to the House in 2012, has represented Illinois’ 17th congressional district in the northwest portion of the state. After a single-digit victory in 2012 over GOP incumbent Rep. Bobby Schilling, Bustos won her 2014, 2016 and 2018 reelections by double digits. But, she narrowly captured a fifth term last November by just four points.
Credit: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via REUTERS
When the lineup was set March 3 for Saturday’s special election to replace the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, there was some hope the 23-candidate field would eventually give way to a much more manageable race.
While that has happened to an extent some of the major-party candidates have separated themselves from the pack the race remains highly competitive in its final hours, and two major questions loom that have both Democrats and Republicans on edge.
Will former President Donald Trump’s late endorsement of Wright’s widow, Susan Wright, be enough to secure her a decisive berth in an anticipated runoff? And will Democrats, who believe they have a shot at flipping the district, be able to get one of their candidates in that overtime round?
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Source: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
Congresswoman Cheri Bustos (D-IL) announced on Friday that she will not seek reelection in the 2022 midterm elections, but will finish out her 5th term in the House. Bustos chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for the 2020 cycle, and is responsible in-part for the massive losses that House Democrats saw on election day. Pundits and election forecasters insisted that Republicans would be pummeled in congressional elections, but Democrats ultimately lost seats and left Speaker Pelosi with a historically slim majority.
“Today, I’m announcing I will not seek reelection after completing this term,” Bustos said on Friday. “It will be a new decade, and I feel it’s time for a new voice.”
By Benjamin Cox on April 30, 2021 at 1:05pm
17th District Congresswoman Cheri Bustos has announced she will retired at the end of her current term.
Bustos, who is originally from Springfield, spent a brief time in Jacksonville as an undergraduate student at Illinois College before finishing her Bachelors of Science in Political Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. She returned to Springfield and received her Masters Degree in Journalism from UIS.
In the 1980s, Bustos moved to the Quad Cities and was first elected to Congress in 2012 defeating Republican incumbent Bobby Schilling. She was the first Democrat to represent a significant portion of Peoria since 1927, and only the second Democrat since the 1850s to represent a significant portion of Rockford. Bustos, along with Senator Dick Durbin, are the only Illinois Democrats in Washington D.C. not from Chicagoland.
Rep. Cheri Bustos, former House Democratic campaign chief, will retire in 2022
Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos will not run for reelection in 2022 after a decade in office and disappointing Democrats in her 2020 performance as the chairwoman of the House Democratic campaign arm, she announced Friday.
Bustos is one of seven House Democrats serving in districts former President Donald Trump carried in 2020. Her announcement came days after the Census Bureau said that her state would lose a House seat.
In a statement, Bustos’ office touted her work on a variety of issues the economy, health care, infrastructure, agriculture, for veterans and in response to the coronavirus pandemic, as well as her “Supermarket Saturday” events, which helped her understand what her constituents wanted from her in Washington.