We won’t have Bob Dold! to kick around anymore after a spokesperson for the former Republican congressman announced that he would not run for a fifth time in Illinois’ 10th Congressional District, located along Chicago’s affluent and well-educated North Shore. Dold narrowly won his first term here in 2010, but Democrats redrew his blue-leaning seat to become even more Democratic in redistricting and he narrowly lost re-election to Democratic now-Rep. Brad Schneider in 2012. Dold returned the favor in the GOP wave year of 2014 by just barely ousting Schneider, but the Democrat got the best of him in their third bout in 2016.
Dold was likely the GOP’s best hope in this ancestrally Republican suburban district, but Hillary Clinton’s 62-33 landslide would have been a daunting obstacle in 2018. Nonetheless, Republican attorney Jeremy Wynes is undeterred and just launched a bid of his own on Tuesday. Wynes previously served as the Midwest regional director for the hawkish pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC before leading the Midwest office for the Republican Jewish Coalition. While he doesn’t seem to have run for office before, Wynes does appear to have some connections that could serve him well as a candidate, but this will likely still be a very inhospitable seat for the GOP given the district’s long-term trend toward Democrats.