Duckworth claims victory over Kirk in Illinois Senate race

CHICAGO - U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth captured a U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday, capping a rapid rise from injured Iraq War hero to member of the world's most exclusive club.

Riding a compelling personal story of perseverance and a slew of political advantages, the two-term Democratic congresswoman defeated Sen. Mark Kirk, a Republican seeking a second full term.

'We showed (that) a campaign that respects the voters and is focused on practical solutions rather than shopworn slogans can actually be successful,” Duckworth told supporters at a downtown Chicago hotel ballroom. 'We showed that a relentless focus on rebuilding Illinois' middle class and respecting hard work rather than wealth can be successful too.”

Kirk gave his concession speech at 8:16 p.m. before much of the vote had even been counted statewide but shortly after The Associated Press called the race for Duckworth. Early returns showed Duckworth with 63 percent to 33 percent for Kirk, with about 31 percent of precincts reporting.

'I have just called Sen.-elect Tammy Duckworth to congratulate her on a well-fought race,” Kirk told a mostly younger crowd of volunteers milling in and out of a conference room at a Northbrook hotel. 'I told Tammy that I would do everything possible to make sure that Illinois has the strongest possible representation in the U.S. Senate.”

Kirk said he invited Duckworth for a post-election beer at the Billy Goat Tavern, similar to what he did in 2010 after winning the Senate seat.

'This coming beer summit will show kids across Illinois that opponents can peacefully bury the hatchet after a tough election and that what unites us as Americans is much stronger than what divides us.”

Kirk had widely been viewed as the most vulnerable Republican in the nation to seek re-election this year. Democrats, hoping to retake a majority in the chamber had viewed a Duckworth victory as critical to their national efforts. The win means Democrats reclaimed the Senate seat that once belonged to President Barack Obama.

Voters got to weigh in following a campaign the two candidates at times seemed determined to make a referendum on who would better serve veterans' causes instead of who could better handle a U.S. senator's broad scope of duties. Duckworth served in the Iraq War and Kirk is a retired Naval reservist.

During the Senate campaign, Kirk attacked Duckworth over her stewardship of the state veterans' agency. Duckworth responded by attacking Kirk's dedication to veterans' issues and alleged he sided with 'Wall Street” interests instead of 'Main Street” causes, such as allowing students to refinance college loans. She also pushed for free community college, something Kirk labeled a 'give away.”

The political backdrop favored Duckworth. Democrats turn out in greater numbers in Illinois during presidential years. The polarizing Donald Trump was atop the Republican ticket. And Kirk made a series of controversial statements that gained national attention.

Duckworth was easily able to raise more campaign cash than Kirk and out flank the Republican senator for more than a year. Even the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee pulled some of its late advertising that had been scheduled to assist Duckworth, sensing that victory was at hand.

Kirk spent much of what he raised on early TV attack ads as he attempted to negatively define his challenger in voters' minds. But he was unable to gain outside financial assistance of national Republican-backed super political action committees and independent expenditure groups, as they opted to look elsewhere to try to save Republican control of the Senate. That largely left Kirk on his own, with limited resources, to promote a message that he's moderate and a political independent.

Those liabilities allowed Duckworth to campaign in play-it-safe mode, largely looking for votes outside the Chicago area where she was less known while trying to heal any rifts left over in the city's African-American community after her overwhelming March primary win over opponent Andrea Zopp.

Duckworth's ascent to the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination marked a remarkable decadelong political rise. She lost both legs when the Army helicopter she was co-piloting was felled by a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq in November 2004. Illinois' senior Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin quickly became a political mentor.

She narrowly lost a 2006 bid for a west suburban congressional seat to Republican Peter Roskam. Weeks later, she was asked by then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich to become director of the state Department of Veterans Affairs, allowing her to keep a high public profile. After Obama's 2008 White House victory, Duckworth went to Washington to become an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

After Democrats gained the right to redraw congressional district boundaries following the 2010 federal census, Duckworth returned to the suburbs and defeated one-term Republican firebrand-turned-radio talk show host Joe Walsh in 2012. She easily won re-election in 2014 to position herself for a run against Kirk.

Kirk previously served 10 years in the House representing the North Shore before winning in 2010 the Senate seat Obama vacated to enter the White House a year earlier. On the eve of the Senate election, Kirk predicted an 'upset victory,” underscoring the odds against him.

Kirk, too, sought to tell a powerful personal story of recovery in his re-election campaign. Just a year or so into his Senate term, Kirk suffered a massive stroke that led to a lengthy rehabilitation. The stroke left him without the use of his left arm and limited use of his left leg.

His return to the Senate in 2013, which included a climb up the steps of the U.S. Capitol assisted by Vice President Joe Biden and his close colleague from across the aisle, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, became his inaugural campaign ad this year.

But Kirk didn't help his own campaign by making a series of controversial statements that prompted questions about his ability to serve in office. He likened Obama to the nation's 'drug dealer in chief” over the U.S.-led multinational agreement to reduce Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons. He also compared the deal to Great Britain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler by ceding Czechoslovakia to the Nazis.

The final debate of the Senate campaign Friday underscored Kirk's struggles. He began the faceoff by issuing a second apology to Duckworth over a comment at the previous debate in which he questioned her family's heritage and military legacy.

After Duckworth had chronicled her family's history of military service on her father's side dating to the American Revolution in the second debate, Kirk replied, 'I had forgotten that your parents came all the way from Thailand to serve George Washington.” Duckworth was born in Bangkok to a mother of Chinese heritage and a military veteran father of British descent.

Asked during the final debate if his comment carried racial overtones, Kirk declared 'I am not a racist.” He acknowledged, 'I wasn't thinking. That was a mistake on my part,” and he said he had been 'too quick to turn a phrase” prompting the need to make apologies.

Kirk repeatedly denied that the stroke had impaired his ability to filter out controversial comments and noted that his doctor, in a letter, said he had made a 'full cognitive recovery.” Kirk declined to produce detailed documentation on his recovery, treatment and physical and mental condition, making it difficult for voters to assess his fitness for office.

Kirk also found his re-election prospects complicated by the Republican presidential nominee, controversial New York real estate mogul and former reality TV show star Donald Trump. Kirk, who had earlier pledged to support any eventual nominee, later unendorsed Trump over the White House nominee's criticism of an Indiana-born federal judge of Mexican heritage who was overseeing a lawsuit against Trump University.

The senator had difficulty explaining his choice for a write-in candidate for president, something that wouldn't count under Illinois law, and variously said he backed former CIA Director David Petraeus or former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Kirk's campaign noted the Republican had previously outperformed GOP candidates for the White House in presidential year elections. But that was during his time as a congressman in the more socially moderate-to-liberal North Shore, not as a statewide candidate.