Challenger Newman sees gain in Lipinski’s pain — third candidate ‘stunned’ by bad blood

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Two years after an Election Night wish for Rep. Dan Lipinski to have a “very painful evening,” returning Democratic challenger Marie Newman said she she’d do one thing differently.

“When I said ‘have a painful night,’ I should have said that directly to Congressman Lipinski, not in front of a large audience,” Newman said at a Sun-Times Editorial Board meeting Wednesday.

“I’ll just apologize for now saying that on Election Night,” Newman told Lipinski. “I should have said that directly to you in private.”

“And that makes it better? Lipinski asked, calling the progressive activist’s words “Trump-like.”

“It worked for President Trump, but I don’t think that’s what people really want to be here,” he said.

Newman told Lipinski “you deserved it,” because of the negative campaign tactics the Chicago Democratic political machine used against her.

“The machine must go,” Newman said. “They torture families. They bully people. And they’re nasty people. The machine must die, and I am a reformer.”

Rich Hein/Sun-Times

Welcome to the heated 3rd Congressional District rematch of Lipinski and Newman, where bad blood runs deep. Two other Democratic candidates have joined the fray this go-around — Rush Darwish, who runs a radio and TV production business, and Charles Hughes, a former Lipinski precinct captain.

The race is the highest profile and most competitive Democratic congressional primary in Illinois. And to a certain degree it’s a magnified version of some of the ideological divisions playing out in the Democratic presidential primary.

Darwish and Newman are progressives. Lipinski is a social conservative, whose anti-abortion stance is perhaps the starkest difference among the candidates.

Just three weeks ago, Lipinski joined 206 members of Congress, almost all Republicans, in signing onto a friend of the court brief filed in a Louisiana case seeking to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that ruled that access to abortions is a constitutional right.

Newman and Lipinski were asked whether their acrimonious relationship had improved or worsened since the 2018 election in which Lipinski faced the toughest political battle of his life. Newman lost to Lipinski by just 2,145 votes — or less than 3% of the primary vote.

Rich Hein/Sun-Times

On Election Night — with Lipinski taking a razor-thin lead — Newman refused to concede and told her supporters she hoped Lipinski was having a “very painful evening.”

Those words were still echoing on Wednesday.

Newman said the remark came out of pent-up anger over the nastiness of the campaign, including push-text messages in which she was accused of being anti-Catholic.

“My mom said rosaries for this guy because he was lying so much,” Newman said of Lipinski.

Other text messages accused her of running an abortion clinic and of being a Holocaust denier, Newman said.

“You can see my visible frustration with him. The machine did horrible things on the ground to me and said horrible things to my kids on Election Day. They tortured both of my kids all day long, and I just really had it,” Newman said. “And we will get rid of the machine one way or other.”

Newman is referring, of course, to the Chicago Democratic machine. She argues it runs deep through the Southwest Side and west suburban congressional district — home to Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan. Madigan, who also runs the state Democratic Party, is a longtime ally of the Lipinski family.

Lipinski, who succeeded his father in Congress, sees little improvement in his relationship with Newman over the past two years.

“Well, I can’t say that it is [any better],” Lipinski said. “This past April instead of apologizing [for her Election Night remarks, she] doubled down and made a claim that the reason that she said that, it’s something to do with supposedly something Mr. Lipinski and his camp had done directly against her, her or children in her family.”

Rich Hein/Sun-Times

Boiling tensions aside, this time around, Lipinski and Newman face two other challengers.

Hughes was a no-show on Wednesday.

Lipinski said he believes Hughes was put on the ballot to pull “more conservative Democratic voters” from Lipinski’s base. Darwish called Hughes a “dark candidate.”

Darwish, 42, runs a television and photography production business in Pilsen. If elected, he would become the first Palestinian-American and Muslim elected to Congress from Illinois.

A progressive, Darwish could pull votes from Newman.

He said he’s being called daily by Newman supporters, even “high-profile” ones whom he would not name.

“A lot of people were saying, ‘Why are you doing this? Just let it be a rematch,’ And I took a lot of heat. Until now I take a lot of heat. With all due respect, Marie supporters, they’re hitting me up daily: ‘drop out, drop out, drop out.’”

Rich Hein/Sun-Times

“But I see something wrong, and when you see something wrong, you must act,” Darwish said.

“We do have a representative right now that really does act more like a Republican than a Democrat. I always say it’s not 1920. It’s 2020. If you are a Democrat it is a little surprising that you really don’t believe that the woman should have a choice,” said Darwish, who also supports abortion rights.

But Darwish accused Newman of being part of the “extreme team,” representing “pretty much the extreme left of what Dan Lipinski represents.”

Darwish painted himself as the middle man, while also taking shots at the angry Newman and Lipinski relationship.

“I can assure you 100% that the blood runs deep,” Darwish said. “And I was actually taken aback, to be honest with you. ... I was stunned at the level of intense hatred interaction between the two.”