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Coolidge apparent winner for Democrats in 6th
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Updated: March 29, 2012 3:39PM
Unofficial primary election results as of about 11 p.m. Tuesday showed Leslie Coolidge, of Barrington Hills, as the apparent winner for the Democratic nomination to run against incumbent U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, R-6th, in November.
As of 11 p.m., 559 precincts of the district’s 560 had reported. Of the 17,901 votes cast, Coolidge had received 9,745 votes (54.4 percent) to Maureen Yates’ 5,846 votes (32.7 percent) and Geoffrey Petzel’s 2,310 votes (12.9 percent).
“It feels good,” Coolidge said.
The unofficial results do not include early voting ballots, vote by mail ballots, or provisional and late arriving vote by mail ballots.
Once the results become official Coolidge looks forward to facing Roskam, whom she doesn’t believe represents the district’s constituents.
“I think we just have very different philosophies,” she said.
While campaigning went well for the primaries, Coolidge knows she still has a November battle to gear up for.
“We obviously have a steep hill to climb to take on Congressman Roskam, so we will be starting that tomorrow,” Coolidge said Tuesday night.
Coolidge is a retired as a partner in the accounting firm of KPMG LLP, after 28 years, where she worked as external auditor for clients ranging from Fortune 500 multinational companies to technology startups. She has not previously run for a political office, but sits on the boards of several environmental organizations.
She said she decided to run after watching the federal debt ceiling debate last summer. Coolidge said she would support government investing in infrastructure and sustainable energy, as well as new industries to create jobs.
Yates ran because she thought what is going on in Congress is wrong and wondered where all of the negotiation and compromise has gone. Her past political experience included working as a volunteer on former U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean’s campaigns.
Petzel is executive director of the not-for-profit Friends of the Fox River and owns a small business that purchases run-down homes in his community to remodel or rebuild them.
Petzel had said he would support spending for infrastructure improvements, stress ensuring that Social Security and Medicare are solvent, and support the creation of a single-payer universal health care system.
