Note: This post has been updated to included responses from Milton Township Supervisor candidates Elizabeth Higgins-Beard (D) and John Monino (I), added at the end of the article.
The 2025 municipal elections for DuPage County are taking place on this upcoming Tuesday, April 1st. My main takeaway is that there is increased involvement from both Democrats and Republicans, who have had their state and local parties intervene in local races more than usual.
The positions are mostly nonpartisan offices such as city councils, school and library boards, and mayors. Also up for election are the only partisan (Democrat vs. Republican) offices on the ballot: 4 trustees, supervisors, highway commissioners, and assessors in the 9 townships of DuPage County, who are elected every 4 years.
First I’m going to share a few thoughts about the Township elections, then some info about the nonpartisan races.
Townships
Townships are a form of government with a relatively small amount of funds/taxation abilities, and virtually no attention from local media (though some local League of Women Voters groups include township officials).
Historically, Republicans have dominated township offices throughout the county, with very few Democrats being elected until the last decade.
Similar to other downballot elections, Republicans have massively overperformed Trump’s prior presidential performance in both the 2017 and 2021 elections (my guess is that this is impacted by both turnout and persuasion).
For example, after Biden won Lisle Township 61%-36% in 2020, Lisle Township Republicans managed to narrowly hold on to 3 contested positions (clerk, highway commissioner, and 1 out of 4 trustees). Democrats saw more success than ever in 2021 as the county continues to get more blue downballot, and it will be interesting to see if Dems make more progress.
Lisle Township
Lisle Township elections have been particularly interesting. The Democratic candidates for Lisle Township offices were the only Township candidates in DuPage this year nominated not at a party meeting, but instead were elected in a normal primary election on February 28th.
Current township supervisor Diane Hewitt (D) was elected in 2021 and has faced legal issues and several negative headlines during her time in office (which is a feat considering how little attention local media pays to township offices). She isn’t running again, and has opposition from some Dem activists in the county. In the primary election, two slates of trustee candidates ran. One slate calling themselves “Experienced Dems for Lisle Township”, which included two incumbent trustees, have sharply criticized (https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02tpfqDT1Vpj7yGPeSt2SCYKSYoUCrberNrTPjVoG6FBQG8iw1qaQY7fZ5K3kxn4Aal&id=61567734504644) the outgoing Supervisor. That slate ended up losing the primary to the other slate more aligned with Hewitt.
Republicans are hoping to capitalize on the negative headlines, and the Illinois Republican Party has even paid for mailers seeking to tie the current Democratic candidates to Hewitt (which is a rare move for township elections). It will be an uphill climb considering that both Biden and Harris won every precinct in Lisle Township- but Republican wins are definitely possible.
Downers Grove Township
In the Downers Grove Township highway commissioner race, Republican nominee David Smith faces Independent candidate Tom Chlystek, a former Darien Alderman. Chlystek has previously ran for office as a Democrat, including as the D nominee for Highway Commissioner in 2021, a race he lost by 4% (also being the best performing DG township Democrat on the ballot that year).
While perusing the Downers Grove Township GOP website I noticed that they explicitly recommend candidates affiliated with the Republican Party. While many nonpartisan candidates have historically ran with some party backing (such as having a lot of precinct committeeman campaign for them), it’s historically been a little bit taboo to explicitly endorse nonpartisan candidates; but this year, a few township parties (both Ds and Rs) have done this, so increased partisan involvement might be the trend.
Particularly notable that the DG GOP lists Downers Grove village commissioner candidate Paul Drabik, who has espoused some pretty extreme far-right views, including accusations against opponents that resulted in this Facebook statement from opponent incumbent Chris Gilmartin
Winfield Township
Winfield Township has seen some Democratic success recently. Current Supervisor Nicole Prater (R.) won with less than 51% of the vote in 2021, when Dems flipped 2 out of 4 trustee positions. One of those Democrats, Judith Lukas, later won the 2024 Coroner’s race, defeating incumbent Richard Jorgensen (R.). The other incumbent D trustee, Shawn Hacker, is running for Assessor. Assessor has been a particularly difficult position for Democrats to field candidates for because it is a professional assessment role that requires a certification to qualify for the ballot (only 2/9 townships have D Assessor candidates running).
The Supervisor race is worth watching. Prater, who lost the 2024 DuPage County Recorder race to Liz Chaplin (D), is opposed by Sheila Rutledge (D), who has been a county board member since she flipped her district 6 seat in the “blue wave” of 2018.
Milton Township
The Milton Township elections showcase some divisions on the Township board which have not been covered by local media (and are thus hard for me to find clear information about).
Incumbent Supervisor John Monino was elected as a Republican in 2021, and is now running as a Independent, facing township trustee Dan Milinko (R.) and nonprofit executive Elizabeth “Buffy” Higgins-Beard (D). It’s clear from the LWV forum that Monino has clashed with the current board.
Township offices went all Republican in the 2021 election, but incumbent Assessor Chris LeVan, first elected as a Republican in 2013, is now running for re-election as a Democrat. Also running on the Democratic slate Paula McGowen, who has run for several offices in the past as a Republican.
To find more information behind these party switches, I reached out to the Milton Township Republicans and Democrats, as well as the campaign of John Monino. So far I only received a response from Milton Township R’s, but will update this article if I get another response.
Milton Township R’s pointed me to this press release from their chairman, Jeff Castle, which alleges legal and operational issues in LeVan’s office. Castle also accuses Monino of “blatantly ignor(ing) the township’s anti-nepotism and hiring policies” by hiring “his friend, Paula McGowen, to a position that didn’t even exist”, causing legal issues for the Township.
Monino seems to be supporting a bipartisan group of candidates for township office, including Democrats McGowen and LeVan.
It’s an uphill climb for any candidate to run as Independent, and will be an interesting race to watch.
Wayne Township
8 Republicans and only 2 Democrats are running for township office: trustee candidate Christianne Lewis and incumbent Highway Commissioner Martin McManamon, who was first elected in 2013.
By running only one trustee candidate, Wayne Township Dems may be engaging in what is known as a “bullet voting” strategy: only run one candidate of your party (or ideology) in a multi-winner race, in order to theoretically maximize that party’s chances of winning at least one seat. It might be a good strategy for places less amenable to the party in question (Wayne is a redder part of DuPage). There’s a couple other examples this election: Naperville Township Republicans are running only one trustee candidate, and the same goes for Bloomingdale Township Democrats.
McManamon (D) has won 3 consecutive contested elections in tough terrain for a Democrat, and this year is opposed by former forest preserve district 6 commissioner Al Murphy (R.), who narrowly lost his 2024 re-election to Carol Stream trustee Rick Gieser (D).
Wayne Township went for Biden 53-46% (a ~2400 vote margin), and swung considerably towards Trump in 2024, flipping Republican by over 400 votes. In contrast with most of the county, Wayne Township also trended red between 2016 and 2020 (Clinton’s margin was 1% larger than Biden). It’s quite a challenge for a downballot Democrat to win a Trump-won district in DuPage (I don’t think it’s been done, in the handful of Trump-era elections).
Nonpartisan offices
Many mayoral, city council, school boards, and library boards have contested races. In many of these races, there are partisan affiliations, some more explicit than others.
In Villa Park, mayoral candidate Kevin Patrick is touting a bunch of Democratic endorsements. Both mayoral candidates in the nonpartisan Elmhurst election are Republicans, but Democrats overwhelmingly favor incumbent mayor Scott Levin. In Lisle, DuPage Republicans are rallying for incumbent Chris Pecak, while Democrats support current Village Trustee (and former Township Supervisor) Mary Jo Mullen.
Aurora’s mayoral race is particularly nasty and politicized.
The partisan affiliation of each candidate is pretty clear, and Illinois Democrats have acted by trying to take out Irvin through negative mailers.
Incumbent mayor Richard Irvin ran as a Republican for Governor in 2022 and, despite getting tons of monetary support, lost the primary extremely decisively to Darren Bailey. His opponent, Alderman-At-Large John Laesch, is a longtime progressive activist who was the 2006 Democratic nominee against U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and narrowly lost a 2008 primary run to current-Congressman Bill Foster.
The race between Irvin and Laesch has seemed pretty nasty, with Laesch being attacked for being perceived as being too far left, and Irvin being accused of corruption. Aurora is a pretty blue city and Irvin will need to retain some of his prior bipartisan support in order to win. In an attempt to coalesce Democratic support, Laesch has touted endorsements from Dems like Rep. Chuy Garcia.
Another hyper-politicized election is the race for Naperville City Council, where 4 seats are up. There’s been quite a bit of controversy. Nag Jaiswal was recently accused of fabricating several endorsements from both D’s and R’s: U.S. Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi and Danny Davis, State’s Attorney Bob Berlin, and former Naperville Mayor Steve Chirico all say they never endorsed him. Jaiswal is a Republican, but DuPage R’s don’t particularly like him: DuPage GOP Chairman Kevin Coyne (himself a former city councilmember) issued a scathing statement on March 28th. Republicans have a few candidates they’re supporting, including incumbent Jennifer Bruzan Taylor. Democrats have gotten clearly behind a slate of four candidates, who were also endorsed by U.S. Reps Bill Foster and Lauren Underwood.
Both parties have been trying to exert increased influence on tomorrow’s election. It’s not worth reading too much into the township election results (which are low turnout and don’t necessarily reflect partisan trends), but many races have interesting dynamics and deserved more local media coverage.
UPDATE #1:
Another note on the partisan feuds going on in nonpartisan elections: the DuPage Democrat and Republican parties are engaged in a social media conflict. The DuPage Republicans posted a meme portraying Governor J.B. Pritzker as a puppet master, controlling paid advertisements from the state Democratic party for nonpartisan candidates. DuPage Democrats responded by calling the post antisemitic and nicknaming the GOP chairman as “Kevin K. Koyne”. The tension between the two county parties seems to be at an all-time high. After losing a lot of local seats since Trump’s election in 2016, new DuPage GOP chairman Kevin Coyne has fully embraced Trumpism in their communications strategy. This is a questionable strategy: it makes sense to juice partisan turnout in off-year elections, but Trump has been anathema to DuPage swing voters, with downballot Republicans generally out-performing him by large margins.
UPDATE #2:
After publishing this article I received responses from incumbent Milton Township Supervisor John Monino (I) and Democratic nominee Elizabeth Higgins-Beard.
I spoke to Monino on the phone about his decision to run as an Independent after being elected as a Republican in 2021. He lamented the divisive state of partisan politics and told me that the “Republican Party has drastically moved in a different way”. He also addressed his bipartisan slate of endorsed candidates for Township office (5 Ds and 2 Rs), stating that he had either worked with or interviewed most of them. When asked about the negative attacks from his Republican opponents, Monino said “they don’t have anything else to run on”, criticizing their understanding of intergovernmental relationships. He shared an insightful anecdote about the increasingly divisive nature of local politics: after working on a local government non-campaign issue with Democratic county board member Greg Schwarze (who represents part of Milton Township), Monino posted a picture of the two of them on social media. That was enough to trigger a barrage of criticism from local Republican activists.
The Democratic nominee for Supervisor, Elizabeth “Buffy” Higgins-Beard, sent the following statement: “The level of infighting between incumbents, Republican and Independent has cost taxpayers time, reduced Township impact, and spent significant monies. The Milton Township Democratic slate has presented a vision of increased impact, modernized outreach, transparency, and a pledge to operate with professionalism. Under my experienced leadership of scaling organizations aiding neighbors, while always operating with fiscal responsibility, I am excited to see the first Democrats elected in Milton in over 170 years.”
The Milton Township Supervisor’s race will be an interesting test of the two party system in township government. It’s hard for Independents to run in a partisan election anywhere. A victory for Monino would point to a very strong campaign: there has been zero local media involvement to get out his message, even in the form of Daily Herald questionnaires that are conducted for many municipal offices (I don’t really count the conservative site dupagepolicyjournal, which mostly consists of Republican press releases)
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