Moylan Looks Ahead to Serving 55th House District; Sweeney Reflects on Close Race

Reactions from 55th Illinois House District candidates Marty Moylan and Susan Sweeney.

In his victory speech, Moylan said:

"We started this journey 14 months ago, it was my brother and myself and all you guys, Teddy, everybody together we started with the petition drive. And it was a long journey, a lot of days, endless days, a lot of long days, long nights, but today it’s an accumulation of good government coming together to elect a candidate that we feel is the best one here!"

In her comments to supporters, Sweeney said:

"I felt a big responsibility to win this race on behalf of, really, everybody in the State of Illinois that wants to see us change direction, and the impact that we have on people’s lives is pretty devastating when you look at how we have managed our state finances. So, I wanted to make a difference, stand up to the status quo and see some real reform. I don’t think we can stay down the same course and path we’ve been on. I hope that now that this is over, I think that the voters have had an increased awareness, I think, through this election in how critical the issues really are, I hope, so that we really will deal with our pension crisis."

Click here for more election day pictures.

More from Moylan's victory speech at The Bar in Des Plaines:

"I don’t want to miss anybody because it really takes a team to win this, in this kind of election. We were up against some steep competition, we had to raise and spend a lot of money, but, in the end, it was hard work that won this campaign. It was everybody with one goal to change the way that changed the way we were represented in this district before. All my walkers, all the precinct guys, all the phone calls that we made, thousands and thousands of doors, thousands and thousands of phone calls, we went house by house, block by block, phone number by phone number, but thanks everyone, I don’t want to miss anybody, and thanks everyone for their great help. Thanks you guys!"

As the final election results rolled in on Nov. 6, Moylan, while mingling with supporters at The Bar, said the outcome was based on his and Sweeney’s positions on political issues.

"The thing that put me over the top was everybody's hard work," Moylan said. "The campaign was decided on the issues. I'm like a moderate in this district. People made their decision based on issues, not the personalities."

Down the street at Giuseppe’s La Cantina Restaurant, Sweeney said she had hoped that would be the case, but that was not what occurred.

"I was hoping that it would be the issues that would decide this race. I think there was a lot of distraction and distortion that may have impacted some people’s decision-making. People were barraged with mailers on both sides, but I felt I was in a position to have to address a record, that being Marty’s, and talk about issues that really would impact people’s lives if we didn’t address our pension crisis. I wanted to stay focused on the fiscal issues, but I felt it got sidetracked by everything other than that, and that confuses people."

Moylan, who walked back and forth from his campaign office and The Bar, and ducked in and out to take phone calls, took a moment before returning to the celebration to answer the question "what is the first thing on your agenda as representative of the 55th Illinois House District?"

"To work on issues that are very important to the voters, the residents of the 55th District. There’s some big issues the residents have talked about: jobs and the pension issue. I plan to work with the other legislators to get some of these issues solved."

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