McConchie claims victory in 26th state Senate District
After nearly 48 hours of waiting for McHenry County votes to be counted, Dan McConchie declared victory Thursday afternoon in the race to replace state Sen. Dan Duffy in Springfield.
With just provisional ballots in McHenry County left to be counted, the Hawthorn Woods resident had 13,435 votes, 36.5 percent of the total. Mettawa Mayor Casey Urlacher was second with 12,081 votes, 32.9 percent of the total, and Barrington Hills Village President Martin McLaughlin third, with 11,247 votes.
"It goes to show the voters up here really did their homework," McConchie said of his win. "I not being a public official before had the least name recognition but I ended up winning in the end. It shows voters did their own research and saw through the attacks against me."
At least 12,000 more people cast a ballot Tuesday in the 26th District primary this year than in previous primaries, McConchie noted.
According to the unofficial vote totals. the location of a candidate's home base played a big part in how voters chose.
Each candidate claimed the most votes in at least one of the four counties in the 26th District. McLaughlin got 49.9 percent of the 3,063 votes cast in Cook County, as well as the most votes in Kane County. His hometown of Barrington Hills sits in both counties.
Urlacher captured most of the precincts around Mettawa, as well as majority of votes in McHenry County.
McConchie won in Lake County, where voters cast 22,246 ballots in the race - more than in Cook, Kane and McHenry counties combined.
With the victory, McConchie likely will succeed Duffy, who announced Wednesday that he will resign his seat next month, before his term expires in January, to lead the nonprofit Prevent Child Abuse America.
No Democrat filed to run for the seat in November, but the party still has time to choose a candidate.
The 26th District is centered in the Barrington area and encompasses portions of central and southwest Lake County, and parts of northwest Cook County, northeast Kane County, and southeast McHenry County.