Two Aurora Democrats vying to for chance to replace Kifowit for Illinois 84th House

A pair of Aurora Democrats competing for the chance to win the open Illinois 84th House District seat say affordability and education are among their top priorities.

Saba Haider and Jared Ploger are facing off in the March 17 primary for the opportunity to fill the seat left vacant by incumbent Stephanie Kifowit’s departure to campaign for the Illinois comptroller’s office.

The 84th House District encompasses the corners of DuPage, Kane, Kendall and Will counties, with parts of Aurora, Naperville, Oswego, Montgomery and Boulder Hill.

Haider is a DuPage County Board member and small business owner. She said she’s running to expand and protect public schools as well as mental health and addiction services. She also wants to protect the rights of women and immigrants, support small businesses, and safeguard the environment.

“It’s imperative for us to elect candidates that are ready to do the work from day one, that have the experience to lead and the courage to fight,” Haider said in a Daily Herald editorial board interview.

Ploger is a history teacher at Bolingbrook High School and president of the union local representing teachers, paraprofessionals and other staff. He previously served as a school board member in Oswego Unit District 308.

He said his priorities included fully funding education, meeting infrastructure needs and affordability. Ploger said he sees the struggles of both older and younger generations as a caregiver to his mother and as someone trying to help his children and grandchildren get started.

“I can see things fraying at both sides, and I have a lot of fear about what that’s going to look like long term,” he said.

Haider said she’s been endorsed by over 30 elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood. Ploger won the endorsement of Kifowit, whose seat he hopes to win, and Democratic state Sen. Linda Holmes, whose 42nd Senate district includes the 84th House area, among others.

Both candidates expressed concerns about affordability, adding that they would not support new taxes that put additional burdens on working families.

Haider said Illinois has the “eighth most unequal taxpayer system in the country” and that the families with the lowest 20% of incomes pay twice as much in percentage in their state and local taxes as compared to the top 1% of earners.

“That’s just wrong, that’s not fair to them,” she said. “So if you look at increasing taxes, it shouldn’t come on the backs of our working families that are struggling every day.”

Ploger said Illinois needs a “fairer, more sustainable tax structure” and would approve of a tax increase to top earners if it helped provide relief for working families.

“Illinois’s core problem isn’t that we tax too little,” he said. “It’s that we tax in the wrong places.”

Both said they’d like more transparency in the state’s budget process.

“The process is too opaque and too rushed at the end, which makes it easier for special interests to win and harder for taxpayers to follow the money,” Ploger said.

Haider said she supports an earlier release of budget drafts, among other changes.

“A more transparent and data-driven process builds public trust and fiscal discipline,” she said.