ROCKFORD — U.S. Rep. Eric Sorensen sat in the back seat of a car to swap brown dress shoes for a pair of boots before touring a dairy farm in rural Winnebago County on a warm early October afternoon just weeks before the Nov. 5 election.
It was a busy day of campaigning, and the first-term Democrat from Moline wanted to be sure not to track anything on his shoes from the farm to the Unitarian church where he was addressing an abortion rights group later that evening.
Running to retain a seat Democrats have held for all but two years over the past four decades, Sorensen is facing a challenge from Republican Joe McGraw, a recently retired Winnebago County judge, in the sole Illinois congressional race that could have an impact on the balance of power in the U.S. House.
While national prognosticators say Sorensen has a lead in a district Democrats in Springfield carved to their advantage, Republicans still see an opportunity in the state’s 17th Congressional District because Sorensen two years ago underperformed Joe Biden’s 2020 margin of victory over Donald Trump here. Spanning 14 counties, the district melds Democratic-leaning areas such as Rockford, the Illinois half of the Quad Cities, Peoria and Bloomington-Normal by running through vast expanses of farmland and ruby-red rural communities.