100th District State Representative C.D. Davidsmeyer may have a challenger in the November election. Yesterday was the last day that an established party committee could nominate a candidate for a vacant candidacy when no candidate had been named from the Primary Election in March.
Jacksonville Ward 3 Alderman Brandon Adams filed petitions yesterday at the Illinois State Board of Elections to possibly be Davidsmeyer’s Democratic challenger. Davidsmeyer’s campaign has until the end of the week to challenge any of Adams’ signatures to contest his candidacy. Adams was elected to his aldermanic seat last year for a two-year unexpired term.
Adams says he’s campaigning on ideas that he’s fought for at the city level since his first day in office. “I’ve been primarily focused on working people and low income workers and the poor disabled like myself. There’s a need for more money in all of our pockets. I know that for some reason we seem to think that giving our money to the richest people is somehow going to come back to us, but we’ve all seen recently how that’s not the case. Another thing that I’ve really advocated for was high speed, fiber Internet to connect everyone. We need to get everyone connected. This COVID crisis has shown us the digital divide completely between the rich and the less fortunate, and that’s something that I’d definitely like to address and tackle. It would be to try and get as many communities connected as possible.”
Adams says he will also work on healthcare becoming a right at the state level after his experience of being in a coma from contracting West Nile Virus that has permanently disabled him. He says the large hospital bill that accompanied his hospitalization nearly bankrupted him. Adams also wants to work to better low-income and state funded housing. He says that everyone deserves a home.
Adams says that the current racial tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic has created uncharted territory in the state’s political environment. “We just need a change. There is no doubt that this pandemic has created an environment that’s going to be challenging for any candidate. Even a well-seasoned candidate doesn’t necessarily know the exact hoops to jump through this time because of the different situation that everything has presented.”
Adams says he hopes to give people a choice in the upcoming election where they haven’t had one prior. Davidsmeyer has held office since December 2012 when he was appointed by GOP leaders to replace retiring representative Jim Watson. Davidsmeyer, too, was a Jacksonville City Council member from 2008 until the time of his appointment. He defeated Democrat Josh Evans in 2014 with nearly 66% of the vote, ran unopposed in 2016, and defeated Jonas Petty in the 2018 Republican primary but ran unopposed in the general election later on that November. The 100th legislative district covers 7 counties in West Central Illinois that represent over 110,000 people.