Josh Kraushaar, Politico.com, March 8, 2008
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In a race that will likely send tremors throughout the House GOP leadership, Republicans lost former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s seat Saturday in a hotly contested special election in exurban Chicago.
Physicist Bill Foster, a Democrat running in his first political campaign, is heading to Congress after defeating Republican dairy owner Jim Oberweis in a result that was unthinkable just weeks ago.
With all precincts reporting, Foster defeated Oberweis 53 to 47 percent.
The special election was to fill the remainder of Hastert’s unexpired term. A rematch between the two candidates for the full term will be held in November.
Oberweis is widely known in the area because of his dairy business. But he was not able to win even in Hastert’s home base of Kendall County, a reliably Republican fast-growing county in exurban Chicago. Voters there favored Foster by a narrow margin.