Amy Tauchman had no special affinity for DuPage County. In some ways, she just ended up there. It was the late 1980s and she and her husband were looking for some more space for their budding family. They considered moving to Evanston, a town whose residents largely aligned with their politics, but the home prices were too lofty. The south suburbs were out -- Tauchman had reservations about living too close to her in-laws from Oak Lawn. So they compromised and chose Glen Ellyn, a fairly affluent suburb about 20 miles west of Chicago.
Tauchman knew that the county had a reputation as a conservative stronghold, or as she describes it, a place where people “don't like rocking the boat.” She even embraced that hunkered-down attitude herself while raising three young children. But when her kids were old enough to attend school, she realized how ingrained Republican culture really was.
“In 1998, I did some work at the school around what I would call attitude integration, where we stopped calling it Christmas Break and started saying winter,” she remembers. “I was very amazed at the backlash.” According to Tauchman, residents were incensed and PTA meetings turned into vitriolic affairs marked by weeping parents and screaming matches.
Even in casual settings, it was tough to avoid GOP talking points. “The Republican culture … was so oppressive that people gave up trying to have conversations about [politics],” she says. “They would go to parties and just assume everybody is a Republican and walk away never knowing that half the people in that room were Democrats.”
But two weeks ago, Democrats came out of the woodwork in Illinois’ 14th congressional district -- which includes sections of DuPage -- to propel upstart candidate Bill Foster into Congress. It was a stunning victory given the GOP's historical dominance in the region, and one Democrats maintain is a bellwether for congressional races nationwide. While that's unclear, Foster's win certainly illuminates the Democrats' rising influence in Chicago's collar counties, townships where changing demographics and Republican missteps have drastically altered the political landscape. And for lefties on Chicago's periphery, the best may be yet to come.
