Illinois House Speaker Chris Welch will face an Oak Park resident for the 7th Democratic State Central Committeeman seat next March.
But that Oak Park resident will not be Illinois Senate President Don Harmon. Instead, it will be Oak Park Township Supervisor Tim Thomas, who at the deadline on Nov. 3 filed nominating petitions with the Illinois State Board of Elections. The election will be held March 17.
Meanwhile, Harmon (D-39) did not file petitions. That avoids what would have been a public clash between two of the three most powerful Democrats in the state. Welch announced months ago that he was running for the party office and had since been diligently pursuing endorsements and lining up support around the district.
Without mentioning Welch, Harmon told the Chicago Sun-Times that he was “comfortable that the slate of central committee candidates across the state can handle the politics and confident that [Party Chair] Lisa Hernandez will continue to lead a vibrant statewide Democratic Party.”
Thomas said Harmon’s absence doesn’t mean the race for outgoing U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis’s seat on the committee won’t be compelling.
“I’m in this fight to win. I expect a very spirited and good election,” he said in an interview last Thursday.
In August 2024, Thomas was appointed as the new Township Supervisor by the Oak Park Township Board of Trustees, following the death of Supervisor Clarmarie Keenan. Thomas had served as a township trustee since May 2021.
The supervisor is the chief executive officer of the township, responsible for overseeing the administration of township services, managing the budget, and representing the township in various capacities.
Thomas formerly served as assistant director at UAW International, focusing on political strategy and organizing within the UAW National Political CAP Department. He previously worked at Ford Motor Co. for more than 10 years. He has served as vice president of SEIU HCII and has identified himself as a member of Chicago Democratic Socialist of America in a previous candidate questionnaire.
Thomas filed just over 180 nominating signatures, more than the minimum 100 signatures required, but far less than Welch, who submitted 91 petition sheets, most of which had 20 signatures each.
Among the signatures on Thomas’s petitions are those of La Shawn K. Ford, an ally of Welch, Richard Boykin and Felix Tello, all of whom are running for Congress in the 7th District. 78th House Rep. Camille Lilly signed a Thomas petition, as did local Oak Park figure Adekunle Onayemi, who also circulated a petition sheet.
Thomas has support among Oak Park’s politically progressive community, including Thomas petition circulator Colin Bird-Martinez, an Oak Park Library trustee, and library board colleague Mika Yamamoto.
Catherine Readling was Thomas’s campaign chairman when he ran for Oak Park Village Trustee in 2019. She said she has “a great deal of trust in his leadership.”
“For many years he’s demonstrated an outstanding dedication to the community,” she said. “He’s incredibly reliable as a friend and he has a good strategic analysis of what’s necessary in this moment.”
Asked what’s needed in this moment, Readling said, “We need to engage at every level of government.” Readling said that while she doesn’t “have a specific problem with any one person in [the Democratic Party] … my concern is with the process and the [lack of] transparency with the process.”
“Tim Thomas would bring transparency and accessibility to the process,” Reading said.
Thomas said his entry in the race should come as no surprise to any local political officials, saying, “It’s not new. I decided to run for this seat in January. I talked with folks long before Congressman Davis announced [he was retiring].”
“It’s an open seat. I think a fresh perspective on the [state central committee] is a good thing,” Thomas said. He criticized what he termed “the concentration of power” in a few establishment hands and a failure to talk about issues important to many people. He said he intends to “change the tenor of the conversation.”
“We’re not talking about why we lost [nationally in 2024],” Thomas said. “We need to be more receptive to people on the ground. We are not talking about jobs, about income inequality, about food insecurity. We’re not talking about housing insecurity.”
The Welch campaign has clearly taken notice of Thomas. Two Welch staffers pulled Thomas’s petitions to examine: Deputy Chief of Staff Isabel Dobbel and Democrats for the Illinois House Field and Operations Director Patrick McConville. Petitions were also requested by veteran election lawyer Perry Abbasi.
The deadline for filing objections with the Illinois State Board of Elections was 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 10. If a challenge was filed, the ISBE schedules a hearing and the ISBE board then either upholds or rejects the challenge.
“My attorney told me I can expect a challenge,” Thomas said. “I’m 99.9 percent sure I’m solid.”
Asked how he plans to contend with Welch’s well-funded political organization and powerful ground game, Thomas said, “I expect to be all right. I’m not new to politics. I was deputy national political director for the UAW.”
Thomas said a key challenge he’s focused on is the need to make voters aware of an office many people know little or nothing about. He said people have to be educated about why it’s important to vote on a down ballot race.
“This is a low voter info campaign,” he said. “It’s lower on the ballot. It’s an intentional vote.
Four 7th Congress hopefuls face ballot challenges
With two hours left before the filing deadline on Monday, four announced candidates for the 7th District Illinois seat in Congress are facing formal objections to their nominating petitions for the 7th Congressional primary ballot. Three are Democrats, one a Republican.
The same person, Marlo Payne, filed the objections with the Illinois State Board of Elections on Monday afternoon. Payne is objecting to the nominating petitions of Democrats Anthony Driver and Felix Tello, and Republican Patricia “P Rae” Easley.
Jacob Daniel Loveall filed an objection to the petitions of Democrat David Ehrlich.
Austin Weekly News is monitoring petition objections as they are filed with the ISBE and will update this story online.