Up for the first time since she defeated incumbent Republican Senator Mark Kirk in 2016, Democrat Tammy Duckworth has had quite a stint in office. A veteran who lost both legs as a helicopter pilot in Iraq in 2004, she was the first woman with a disability elected to Congress, where she served Illinois’ 8th District for four years before running for Senate. In 2016, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a LGBTQ+ advocacy group, initially endorsed the Republican Kirk in an effort to applaud some GOP candidates’ warmth to their causes and differentiate themselves from other Democratic interest group mainstays. That blew up in their face when Kirk sniped back about Duckworth’s military service by invoking her Thai heritage, while ignoring her family’s centuries of service going back before the American Revolution (“I forgot your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington,” he said in a debate). So the HRC changed their endorsement over to Duckworth and she ended up carrying the election by 15 points, becoming the first double amputee in the Senate, the second Asian American woman in the Senate, and eventually the first senator to give birth while in office.

Duckworth’s tenure has been eventful and she’s become almost a household name among part-time politicos for good reason. She built up strong relationships on Capitol Hill and has been a fierce advocate for veterans, the disabled, and women. She was considered among the frontrunners in Joe Biden’s vice presidential selection in 2020 (she ranked as his fourth strongest pick in our own mathematical model too). She was even acclaimed enough to get a solitary vote by one moderate Democratic member of the House in the 117th Congress’ election for speaker.

This cycle, Duckworth now faces her first chance at reelection against the Republican nominee, attorney Kathy Salvi. Illinois is a pretty blue state, so it’s hard to see how Salvi’s insistence that “the Biden/Duckworth agenda has worked to divide us” will play very well among voters. Of note, she also claims “President Biden’s chaotic and disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan… marked a low point in America’s leadership abroad,” which seems a tad dramatic given some othernotablelow points in America’s foreign policy leadership across the last 250 or so years. Given that there’s a high profile reelection campaign underway for Illinois’ incumbent Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker, this probably helps increase Democratic attention to the Senate race as well. So, Duckworth can expect to win a second term, buoyed by strong name recognition, a blue-leaning electorate, and a credible record of sensible policymaking and good relations on Capitol Hill. The real question with Senator Duckworth is whether she has higher sights in mind…

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