ABOVE: State Senator and Congressional Candidate Willie Preston poses with his family and area Democrats during a Wednesday morning stop at the Roselawn Fitness Center.
With Illinois District 2 Congresswoman Robin Kelly running in 2026 to replace the retiring U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, some interested Democrats have thus far declared their candidacies to replace Kelly in the House of Representatives. One of them, Illinois 16th District State Senator Willie Preston, arrived in Danville to introduce himself on Wednesday (August 20th) morning.
Preston, who represents portions of Chicago and nearby suburbs in the Illinois Senate, said he wanted to start in the southernmost part of the district to let Vermilion County know he intends to represent everybody. He calls Illinois’s District 2 a “mirror of the country” with its urban and rural diversity. Preston says his family has a rural background in its history, having migrated from the fields of Mississippi. He says everybody counts.
AUDIO: I want to demonstrate from the beginning that it’s not to me about politics, so much as “we want to win this election, so we’re going to stay where most of the vote is.” No; every single person inside the 2nd Congressional District deserves representation.
Candidate for Congress, State Senator Willie Preston, speaks with reporters during a Wednesday morning stop in Danville at the Roselawn Fitness Center.
Preston, elected to the State Senate in 2022, says numbers show that proper legislative experience at the state level is an important key to serving in the United States Congress.
AUDIO: It’s important to remember that 267 members of Congress today are former state senators and former state representatives. There’s a reason for that. And that reason is because this is the perfect training to be able to become an effective Congressman.
One of the candidates Preston will be going up against in next year’s April 1st Democratic Primary is former Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr.
