Four Leading 7th District Candidates Seek To Claim Progressive Mantle  

With longtime U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis stepping aside, the race to succeed him in Illinois’ 7th Congressional District has become, in part, a fight over who gets to claim the district’s progressive mantle — and who can translate that claim into votes in Oak Park, widely viewed as the district’s progressive bastion and often an early indicator of which left-leaning candidate can consolidate broader support.

Among the 13 Democrats running in the March 17 primary, four leading candidates have made especially direct appeals to voters looking for an alternative to the party establishment: labor leader Anthony Driver, attorney Reed Showalter, community organizer Kina Collins, and state Rep. La Shawn K. Ford (8th). The Culture selected these four campaigns for closer examination because polling and conversations with campaign operatives suggest they currently have the strongest foothold in Oak Park.

All four candidates describe this election as unusually high-stakes, not only because it will decide who represents one of the most politically significant districts in Illinois, but also because it comes at a moment of deep instability inside the Democratic Party and rising authoritarianism nationally.

They broadly agree that the party has failed to fully meet the moment in recent years. Where they differ is in how to respond. Driver advocates for embracing labor power as a way to strengthen the party, Showalter leans into New Deal-era anti-monopoly policies, Collins argues for leveraging relationships and social networks to build party power, and Ford argues for legislative coalition-building among U.S. House members across party lines. 

Last month, a coalition of Oak Park elected officials publicly endorsed Collins, arguing that she had demonstrated the kind of consistency and movement leadership this moment requires. The group included Village Trustee Jenna Leving Jacobson, several library trustees, and former Village Clerk Teresa Powell.

Jacobson said the endorsement was both ideological and strategic.

“We’ve seen some polling, and there’s substantive separation between Kina and other progressives,” Jacobson said in an interview. “She’s polling highest among the progressives, so it’s strategic, but she’s also someone who has shown she’s a threat to the establishment and machine politics.”

Jacobson referenced an internal poll released by Dr. Thomas Fisher, a South Side candidate running for the 7th District, that showed Collins third behind Rep. Ford and Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin. The poll was conducted in early January, but appears to be the only internal poll made public in a race with few, if any, public polls. Driver and Showalter each garnered 1% in the poll.

Jacobson said that the Fisher poll matters in a race where large donors and outside money are shaping the conversation. She argued that Collins’ history of being targeted by pro-Israel groups and other establishment-aligned interests has only reinforced her credibility among many progressive voters.

“A seat as important as IL-7, in Chicago, that represents such a big part of our city and parts that have been historically disinvested in, shouldn’t be bought and paid for,” Jacobson said. “Kina makes it winnable for progressives.”

Collins, 34, of Austin, has leaned heavily into that argument. A veteran organizer who previously ran against Davis, she says the district does not simply need another Democrat in opposition to President Donald Trump, but someone willing to pressure and remake the Democratic Party itself.

“We’re in a progressive movement, and we should understand what’s at stake,” Collins said. “The better question is what type of Democrat are we getting ready to elect in the district.” 

Collins argues that her years of organizing across the West Side and west suburbs give her a base that newer candidates cannot quickly replicate. She points to relational organizing at house parties and long-running political education work as the foundation of her campaign, particularly in places like Oak Park and Austin.

She also frames the race in historical terms, saying the district has a political DNA shaped by figures like Fred Hampton and the original Rainbow Coalition. For Collins, the campaign is about more than winning a seat; it is about turning the district into an organizing hub that could help build left power across the Great Lakes region.

Driver, 32, is making a different case. The executive director of the Illinois SEIU State Council, which represents 165,000 workers, says the party’s failures stem in part from its distance from working-class people, especially infrequent voters of color who often feel written off by Democrats.

Driver said his frustration deepened after spending time in Wisconsin during the 2024 presidential election, where he helped organize turnout efforts and said he saw firsthand how Democratic campaigns dismissed the field-level observations of grassroots organizers like himself and missed voters they should have been speaking to. 

“It’s time for people who are closest to the pain to be closest to the power,” Driver said.

A former Fight for $15 organizer and former president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA), an entity formed through his organizing efforts, Driver points to his record on worker issues and police accountability as proof that he is more than a candidate with the right rhetoric. He said he has already taken personal risks for his politics, including being targeted after speaking out on police arbitration.

“I’ve been that wide-eyed progressive,” Driver said. “Idealism is great. Courage is better.”

Driver, who lives in Bronzseville, has won backing from several labor unions and from Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a leading congressional progressive. He said labor’s role is to challenge the party when necessary and stand with it when it delivers for working people.

“Sometimes labor is pushing and challenging the party, sometimes they’re in lockstep,” Driver said. “The goal of labor is to always fight for our members, and when the party is standing up for our membership, we’re in lockstep.”

Showalter, also 32, is trying to fuse progressive politics with a sharp anti-monopoly message rooted in his experience as an antitrust attorney in the Biden administration. 

Raised in Oak Park and now living in the West Loop, Showalter says his politics were shaped by watching the 2008 financial crisis devastate working families, including his own. He argues that Democrats since Ronald Reagan, have too often accepted a corporate framework that has made housing, health care, and basic necessities more expensive and less secure.

“I’m running in the Democratic Party because it needs to be completely different than it’s been,” Showalter said.

His pitch is that the district needs someone who understands both the mechanics of federal power and the scale of the corporate threat facing ordinary people. He has called for “big swing progressivism,” not incrementalism, and argues that anger at oligarchy and concentrated wealth is finally breaking through in a way that creates an opening for a more confrontational politics.

“For a long time, the Democratic Party had this soft corporate veneer — everything is a public-private partnership — but there’s something about this moment, as people feel things burning a lot more than they used to, that makes it easier to have that conversation,” Showalter said. 

Ford, 54, the veteran state legislator from the West Side, offers a more institutionally rooted version of progressivism.

Ford rejects the notion that the younger candidates have a monopoly on the label. He notes that he supported Sen. Bernie Sanders early, has a long legislative track record in support of progressive causes, and says he is the only candidate in the race with the relationships necessary to move policy immediately in Washington.

“There’s no one more progressive than me,” Ford said. “The difference between them and me is that I have connections to make sure we can collaborate with Republicans and Democrats to push the agenda.”

Ford, of Austin, has cast himself as the candidate of both experience and community grounding, arguing that Congress is a “blue-collar job” requiring someone who knows how to build coalitions, pass legislation, and fight without isolating potential allies. He also says the district needs a representative with deep West Side roots. 

Taken together, the arguments reflect a larger identity crisis inside the Democratic Party.

Collins says the party needs movement builders unafraid to confront its own leadership. Driver says it must center workers and people closest to social pain. Showalter says it must abandon its corporate habits and take much bigger swings. Ford says it needs seasoned legislators who can turn progressive values into durable law. 

For progressive voters in Oak Park and across the district, the question is no longer whether the party needs to change. It is which candidate is best equipped to change it, and whether that change will come through pressure from the streets, the shop floor, the policy arena, or the legislative chamber.