Senger wins 96th House race
Naperville Republican Darlene Senger is headed back to Springfield for a second term.
With all of the votes counted Tuesday night, unofficial totals showed Senger leading Democratic challenger Dawn DeSart by a margin of 65 percent to 35 percent in the 96th House District race.
Senger, a financial analyst, said she is eager to get back to Springfield to work on fixing pensions and shoring up jobs to make Illinois a business-friendly state.
Senger has vowed to focus on reforming Illinois' pension system, including increasing employee contributions and capping final average salary calculations. She would like to start by revising the pension that state lawmakers receive.
“We've got a lot of work to do in Springfield and not much time to do it in,” she said while celebrating at Cafe Buonaro in Naperville. “Basically we've had our wake-up call at the state level and it's time for us to tighten our belts like so many counties and municipalities have already done. It's our turn.”
Senger fought a hard and expensive fight against Diane McGuire in 2008 to win former Rep. Joe Dunn's vacated seat. So it was nice, she said, to run a “grass-roots” campaign this time around of knocking on doors, posting signs and talking to constituents without having to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Dawn was a worthy competitor and we kept it clean and ran a good race but it sure was nice not to have to fight against (House Speaker Michael) Madigan money for a second consecutive term,” said Senger, who reported spending only $13,900 on the campaign.
DeSart, who said she spent less than $1,000 on the race, will continue to serve the remaining two years of her term on the Indian Prairie Unit District 204 school board.
“This was truly a win-win scenario because Darlene and I ran a great race that we can both be proud of and I get to continue serving the wonderful families in the Indian Prairie school district,” DeSart said. “I truly feel great tonight and I'm looking forward to sleeping in.”
The 96th District covers portions of Naperville, Lisle and Warrenville.