Foster Takes On Evans In Illinois' 11th District: 2024 Election

ILLINOIS — Democrat Bill Foster is looking to hang onto the seat he's kept for over a decade in Illinois' 11th Congressional District.

This election, Foster faces a challenge from Republican Jerry Evans and write-in Independent candidate Anna Schiefelbein.

Foster, who calls himself "the only physicist in Congress," easily won March primary against civil rights attorney and author Qasim Rashid. Evans faced a six-way race in the Republican primary, but emerged as Foster's challenger.

Foster began his career in Congress in Illinois' 14th District, where he was chosen in a special election to replace former House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Then, in 2013, Foster was elected to represent the 11th District.

The 11th District itself underwent major changes with remapping in the wake of the 2020 Census. Today, it covers parts of Cook, Dekalb, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry and Will counties.

According to Foster's website, only 45 percent of the old 11th district remains part of the remapped district. This spans areas in Aurora, Naperville, Lisle and Bolingbrook.

Foster's challenger Evans owns the Jerry Evans School of Music in Wheaton. According to his campaign website, he "is a Christian, husband, father, and political outsider."

Evans, who did not participate in Patch's candidate survey, first moved to the Chicago area in 2002 to attend Wheaton College, his website notes.

His site adds, "An educator for 20 years, [Evans] understands what it means to serve our community and invest in the next generation. Jerry believes that leadership starts with service, honesty, integrity, and is fueled by compassion."

Evans's campaign website cites issues including limited government, energy, immigration, foreign policy, veterans, crime, education and the economy.

Without citing dates, his site claims that "after initiatives to defund the police, crime in Chicago has increased into a full-blown crisis. And it’s not just limited to the city itself. Violent criminals running rampant throughout the city are now making their way west into our community."

Regarding immigration, Evans writes, "The crisis at the Southern border has Illinois experiencing increased rates of human trafficking, drug abuse, fentanyl deaths, and crime all over our state. It is heartbreaking that so many young people are dying from fentanyl overdoses, and innocent children are being trafficked across the southern border. Just because Illinois is not a border state does not mean we have not felt the impact of the poor border policies enacted by the Biden Administration."

Foster, a Naperville resident, completed Patch's candidate survey. In it, Foster described himself as a husband and father of two who previously worked as a scientist at Harvard (until 1983) and at Fermilab (until 2007).

Foster called the most pressing issue facing the 11th District "our continued post-COVID economic recovery and lowering costs for hardworking families."

Foster continued, "While overall inflation has dropped steadily from its pandemic highs, too many Americans are struggling to make ends meet. To address this, we need to raise workers’ wages to help low and middle-income families afford essentials."

Other issues that define Foster's campaign include efforts to combat climate change, support of reproductive rights and toward "ensuring all Americans have access to banking with fair terms."

Foster concluded, "Finally, the biggest threat to our democracy is the loss of faith in free and fair elections - people must be able to exercise their right to vote and know that their vote will be counted and that the outcome of the election will be respected.

For that to happen, we need politicians who reject false accusations of election fraud unless they are able to point to verifiable evidence that substantial fraud took place."

Read Foster's full survey responses here.

Patch Editor Shannon Antinori contributed reporting.