Last week’s elections presented the wins for Illinois races including Cook County State’s Attorney, Illinois United States Senate and other Chicagoland congressional positions.

In the race for Cook County State’s Attorney, Democrat Anita Alvarez came out victorious. Alvarez won over Republican opponent Tony Peraica and Green Party candidate Thomas O’Brien.

Alvarez is replacing former Cook County State’s Attorney Richard Devine, who stepped down from the position to retire.

Evan McKenzie, an associate professor at University of Illinois at Chicago who has a background studying law and public policy, said he thinks Alvarez is an honest, ethical and capable public official. However, he doesn’t see her as State’s Attorney taking a leadership role in cleaning up the corruption problem in Illinois, which is “generated mainly from Cook County.”

“No one from the ‘Democratic machine’ will clean it up,” said McKenzie, who thought someone from the outside, like Peraica, would have “shaken things up” and cleaned up the system.

Alvarez was the chief deputy state’s attorney and received support from Chicago newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and from Illinois officials like Sen. Dick Durbin.

Durbin regained his position as Illinois United States Senator, defeating Republican opponent Steve Sauerberg on Nov. 4 with about 63 percent of the vote, according to CNN.com. The 64-year-old has served as a senator for the past decade and has been the assistant majority leader in the Senate since 2006.

Former Democratic senator for Illinois’ 40th District, Deborah Halvorson, won the congressional seat for Illinois’s 11th District.

The move from Senate to Congress is not unusual, said John Frendreis, a political scientist at Loyola University who specializes in state and local politics. Halvorson’s background being a senator made her a “quality candidate” because she has recognition and the political experience, Frendreis said.

The 11th District has voted Republican for more than a decade, but Halvorson won with about a 23-percent lead over Republican opponent Marty Ozinga, according to CNN.com. Halvorson replaced Republican Jerry Weller who served seven terms for the district but did not run again this election.

A Democrat taking a former Republican seat isn’t unusual when the incumbent steps down as Weller did, Frendreis said. It gives the other party a chance to come into play, he said.

Halvorson was the first woman elected to be the majority leader in Illinois. One of her major focuses has been concerning Iraq, as she has a son who is currently deployed in Afghanistan.

Halvorson, however, goes against conventional democratic lines with her support for the Second Amendment, defending the right to bear arms. She received the National Rifle Association’s endorsement during her campaign for Congress.

Republican incumbent Mark Kirk regained his seat in Congress for the 10th District, which includes parts of northern Cook County and eastern Lake County. The district has voted in his favor in the general election since he first ran in 2000, and Kirk gained about 54 percent of the vote on Nov. 4 over opponent Dan Seals, according to CNN.com.

Kirk’s win wasn’t really surprising, Frendreis said, because he was the incumbent and is a very moderate Republican. However, Frendreis said that Kirk was behind in some polls before the election.

Kent Redfield, political science professor emeritus at University of Illinois at Springfield, agreed that polls before the election were “all over the place” between Kirk and Seals.

Seals also campaigned for the position in 2006 against Kirk and received 47 percent of the vote. Seals had received Sen. Barack Obama’s support during both of his campaigns.

“To Dan [Seals], change isn’t just a word, it’s a way of life,” said Obama in a radio ad for Seals.

Frendreis said he would guess that Seals is done campaigning for the seat.

Another race where the incumbent regained a congressional seat was in the 14th District, which includes the counties of Henry, Lee, DeKalb, Kendall, Kane and part of DuPage.

Bill Foster (D-Geneva) won with about a 14-percent lead over Republican opponent Jim Oberweis, according to CNN.com.

Foster was previously elected over Oberweis after a special election in March 2008 following former Republican Congressman J. Dennis Hastert’s retirement.

Frendreis said it was a surprise that Foster won in the special election because he was a Democrat taking over for a Republican in a Republican district.

However, Foster ran a much more successful campaign and did a better job connecting to voters than Oberweis did, Frendreis said.

Oberweis, the chairman of well-known Oberweis Dairy, has campaigned for many positions in past years including Illinois senator in 2002 and 2004 and Illinois governor in 2006, but he has never been victorious in a election.

Frendreis thinks Oberweis is done campaigning after this race because he has lost so many times in the past.

“He is just not a strong candidate,” Frendreis said.