Tammy Duckworth Prevails by 200 Votes; Moves to Battle for Hyde's Seat

By Stewart David Ikeda, IMDiversity

March 22, 2006 - Late-night results announced after a long IL primary election day with relatively low turnout showed Tammy Duckworth the victor in a photofinish results over Christine Cegelis in the race toward the state's 6th District House.

By the time the results were tallied and posted by officials of DuPage County, Duckworth had squeaked ahead with a margin of some 200 votes, with all 399 precincts reporting and 25,507 total votes cast.

In the statewide results, the Republican Baar Topinka took a respectable lead over Oberweiss to lead the Party's gubernatorial race challenge to Blagojevich, who handily beat challenger Eisendrath by a 40% as of 7:00 a.m. this morning.

Prior to the primary, Duckworth had been getting wide national attention -- from both media and strategists of both parties -- as a particularly promising candidate to lead the Democrats' campaign for the 6th district seat being vacated by retiring Rep. Henry Hyde.  As a veteran of the Iraq War, Duckworth had won strong support from national veterans' groups for her efforts to secure adequate care for soldiers after returning home.   The heroic story of the former Blackhawk helicopter pilot, who lost both her legs in an RPG attack has captured the focus of national media, while big guns from the Democratic Party including John Kerry and Barack Obama had strongly backed her after late entry into the race (she could not officially enter until released from military service).

The results of Duckworth's primary election reported by DuPage County as of 1:52 a.m. follow.

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