On a recent Sunday afternoon, 31-year old Kina Collins strode up the front steps of tidy bungalows in the Galewood neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side to introduce herself to voters in the hopes they will make her their next representative in Congress.
Repeatedly referring to their current congressman, U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, as a “25-year incumbent,” Collins encouraged the voters to open their minds to the idea she could — and should — do the job.
“He’s been my representative since I was 5 years old,” Collins recited to the voters as they stood on their front stoops. “We know that it’s time for a change.”
Just a few hours later that same day, the 80-year old Davis slowly walked into a hotel in the South Loop flanked by West Side Democrats City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin and her husband, Ald. Jason Ervin, 28th, as well as U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries from New York, the second-highest-ranking Black lawmaker in Congress.
With his famously deep baritone voice, Davis touted his long record of work in Congress, but it was also obvious that his young opponent wasn’t far from his mind as he dismissed Collins as “some young lady who has never done anything that I’m aware of except talk.”
“If anybody tells you that a rookie is as good as a great veteran, they must be out of their mind!” Davis intoned. “They have to be bordering on insanity.”
The contrasting scenes playing out almost daily in the 7th Congressional District race highlight the ideological and generational divide facing the Democratic Party in Illinois and across the nation. Two major candidates — one younger and more progressive; the other an establishment politician who had been at the forefront of liberal politics but whose time might be coming to a close.
And the backing the two have received from others helps spell out the dichotomy.
Collins is endorsed by several progressive groups, including Justice Democrats, a leading left-wing political action committee that backed U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York in 2018 and Marie Newman in Illinois in 2020. Davis, meanwhile, works closely with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team, a message underscored by Jeffries’ presence on a series of visits to city churches.
“I’m going to go back to Washington and tell the world I’m a Danny Davis Democrat!” Jeffries proclaimed.
Heading into the final weeks before the June 28 primary, the contest between Davis and Collins features two Chicago West Siders seeking to represent a district that stretches from the west suburbs of Westchester, Bellwood and Oak Park through the city’s West Side and east to Lake Michigan, encompassing Streeterville and downtown, before darting south to include parts of the South Loop, Bridgeport and Englewood.
The district highlights the deep inequities that often characterize Chicago, demonstrated by significant gap in life expectancy in two neighborhoods within the district: 90 years for Streeterville and 60 years for Englewood.
Much of the heart of the 7th District hasn’t changed with redistricting, and since 1997 the district has been represented by Davis. Originally from Arkansas, the child of sharecroppers, Davis was a Chicago alderman and key ally to Mayor Harold Washington in the 1980s before being elected to the Cook County Board.
Read More: Young progressive Kina Collins challenging U.S. Rep. Danny Davis