DANVILLE, Ill. (WAND)- State Representative Mike Marron (R-Fithian) has declared victory in the 104th Legislative district.
According to the unofficial tally from the Champaign County Clerk, Vermilion County Clerk, and Danville Election Commission Marron has 18,682 votes to 14,070 votes for Democratic candidate Cindy Cunningham.
“I want to thank all the people of the 104th District for having their voices heard,” said Marron. “I especially want to thank all of my volunteers who spent countless hours helping my reelection effort and my family for sticking by my side through such a crazy time.”
The 104th Legislative District is made up of three different election commissions, Champaign County, Vermilion County, and the Danville Election Commission.
The unofficial count for each election committee has been broken down as follows:
- Champaign County - Marron 9,224 votes, Cunningham’s 9,457
- Vermilion County - Marron 5,932 votes, Cunningham’s 1,803
- Danville - Marron 3,526 votes, Cunningham’s 2,810
“While there are still vote by mail ballots yet to be counted, there aren’t enough ballots left in the 104th District to make up such a sizable gap,” said Marron. “Democrats in Illinois gerrymandered this district to shift 10 percentage points in their favor and then spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in attack ads against me. All of that gerrymandering and negative campaigning gained my opponent 1 percentage point from the previous election. I hope they are happy with their return on investment.”
According to the News-Gazette, the Champaign County Clerk still has 5,000 more vote by mail ballots to count. After the first batch of counting was done on Thursday, of the 2,585 ballots tallied, only 599 were from the 104th District (23%).
Marron's Campaign team stated at that rate, there are not enough vote by mail ballots left to change the results of the election even if every vote went to Cunningham. It is statistically impossible for Cunningham to make up this deficit.
“The results of the race for the 104th show that local support will beat all the money in attack ads political parties can buy,” said Marron. “I am proud of the work we have done for the people of Champaign and Vermilion Counties and I look forward to continuing to do that work for the next two years.”
