US Representative Bill Foster wins the 11th Congressional District

The Associated Press has declared Democratic incumbent Bill Foster won the 11th Congressional District.

Foster received 55.7% of votes against candidate from the Republican Party Katalina Lauf – 44.3% at 95% of polling stations.

Since 2013, Foster is known as the only Ph.D. physicist in Congress — usually won re-election by a wide margin, but the new district presented new challenges, including GOP challenger Lauff.

Foster has represented the 11th congressional district since 2013, but after the 2020 census, he needed to convince thousands of new voters.

After a decade of redistricting following the 2020 census, the Naperville Democrat was the candidate for more than half of all voters in his redrawn district, which now stretches northwest from Bolingbrook through parts of Aurora, Naperville, Batavia and St. Charles to Crystal Lake, Woodstock and almost to Rockford.

Lauf, a Woodstock resident, defeated five other candidates to win the Republican primary in June with 31 percent of the vote.

She was appointed as an advisor to the US Department of Commerce in 2018 by President Donald Trump. In 2020, Lauf ran for Congress in the 14th District and lost, but was selected to speak at that year’s Republican National Convention.