Three Naperville women appearing on Time magazine cover
Three Naperville women running for elected office are featured on the cover of the most recent Time magazine as part of a collage of Women's March participants the magazine called "The Avengers."
The women are being recognized as part of a wave of female candidates mobilized to run for election.
Lauren Underwood, Valerie Montgomery and Anne Stava-Murray are pictured among 48 women from across the nation, and Underwood also is featured inside with a six-page story by reporter Charlotte Alter.
"What an honor to be included among this cohort of dynamic women across the country," Underwood said.
The women called the recognition a sign they are truly faces of the national movement and said it will offer a boost to their campaigns.
"It feels very surreal because I'm just a normal, everyday person who is doing what I can each day," Stava-Murray, 32, said. "So it was really a delightful surprise."
Underwood is running in a contested Democratic primary for the 14th U.S. House District, while Montgomery and Stava-Murray are unopposed in Democratic primaries for state representative seats - Montgomery in the 41st District and Stava-Murray in the 81st.
Underwood, 31, said the Time piece puts into context the upswing in female candidacy for state and federal positions since the election of President Donald Trump.
"Now there are more women running for office than ever before," the story's headline reads.
Indeed, the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University has identified 314 Democratic and 75 Republican women as potential U.S. House candidates. For Senate races, the center projects 31 Democratic and 18 Republican women.
For candidates from Naperville to be featured prominently in a national magazine shows the region's key participation in this trend of political activism, Underwood said.
Stava-Murray said the three Naperville candidates met Alter from Time at the Women's Convention last October in Detroit, where they led a panel about how to organize local political involvement.
She said they discussed the "chain effect of women inspiring other women" and the support organizations that are helping new candidates run their campaigns.