Rep. Rodney Davis and Betsy Londrigan square off in Illinois' 13th Congressional District
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Betsy Dirksen Londrigan is challenging GOP Rep. Rodney Davis for the second time in Illinois' 13th congressional district.
- The district occupies a swath of Central Illinois.
- This race will be a highly-watched rematch between the two candidates. Davis narrowly defeated Londrigan by a little over 2,000 votes and a margin than one percentage point in the 2018 midterms.
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The candidates
Betsy Dirksen Londrigan is challenging GOP Rep. Rodney Davis for the second time in Illinois' 13th congressional district.
Davis, who has represented the district since 2013, is a conservative but relatively mainstream Republican member who has voted with Trump 91% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight. He serves as the Ranking Member of the House Administration Committee and on the powerful House Agriculture and House Transportation & Infrastructure Committees.
This race will be a highly-watched rematch between the two candidates. Davis very narrowly defeated Londrigan by a little over 2,000 votes and a margin than one percentage point in the 2018 midterms.
In both her 2018 and 2020 campaigns, Londrigan is heavily emphasizing protecting and expanding access to healthcare, contrasting her campaign message with Davis' record of voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act in 2017
Both candidates' campaigns have also been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-March, Londrigan self-quarantined for two weeks after coming into contact with an infected individual, and Davis recently announced he was had tested positive for the disease, one of several lawmakers to test positive this year.
The district:
Illinois' 13th congressional district occupies a swath of Central Illinois stretching southwest from the city of Champaign, which includes the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, past the state's capital city of Springfield and down to the area outside of St. Louis in southwest Illinois.
The district voted for President Donald Trump by a margin of six percentage points, 50% to 44%, in the 2016 election. If elected, Londrigan would the first Democrat to represent the district since 1895.
The money race
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, each candidate has raised nearly the same amount: Davis has raised about $3 million while his opponent, Londrigan, has received $2.8 million in campaign donations. Londrigan, however, has spent less on her campaign and has $2.2 million on hand compared to Davis with $1.9 million.
What some of the experts say:
The race in the general election between Londrigan and Davis is rated as a "toss-up" by Inside Elections, a "Republican toss-up" by The Cook Political Report, and "leans right" according to Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.