Melba Lara: You're listening to WBEZ. The fate of which party controls Congress remains up in the air. Republicans may have picked up some seats around the country, but their gains did not come from Illinois. Here, Democrats retained key tight house races, particularly in Chicago suburbs. Lynn Sweet covers Washington for the Chicago Sun-Times. She's here now to take a look at the battleground federal races around Illinois. And Lynn, let's start with Democrats, won house seats all over Chicago suburbs. Do you think Republicans had a chance to pick up any seats there?

Lynn Sweet: Well, we're really focusing on three seats that were in the suburbs that were most closely watched. And these are three incumbents, Lauren Underwood, Sean Casten and Bill Foster. And all of them sailed through the election just fine. They all got about 54% of the vote to 40%. They all had a lot of new territory in their districts. So in some way, there is so much - many new potential constituents that it was almost like having an open seat, you know, but it turned out all the incumbents did just fine.

Melba Lara: Donald Trump, of course, has not performed well in Illinois' general elections. How would you say his presence over national politics played a factor in the Democratic wins here, if at all?

Lynn Sweet: Let me give a little bit of a nuanced answer. He is a factor in that his presence as a very powerful political force increased, I believe in Illinois, the power and the numbers of the Trump wing of the Republican party in Illinois. To the point that that is the dominant wing and what we would have called the establishment, more moderate Republican wing, is almost invisible. So in that way Trump was a factor because in so many other races in Illinois, you saw this 54-ish, 40-ish split. So it shows that there are still many Republicans in Illinois.

Melba Lara: Of course, Illinois is sending a new class of congress members to Washington. Who stands out as somebody to watch?

Lynn Sweet: Well I think every freshman is somebody who is going to be notable. Let's start in the new third district State Representative Delia Ramirez, was easily elected. So she is now the 3rd Hispanic to be elected to Congress from Illinois. Then you have on the South Side, Jonathan Jackson, the son of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, certainly will watch him. I would watch Nikki Budzinski from a downstate district, and we still had a Democrat Eric Sorensen neck and neck with Republican Esther Joy King. But no matter what, whoever wins that race, that will be a freshman to watch.

Melba Lara: And I want to loop back to something you touched on earlier about redistricting in Illinois. We saw the Democrats performed pretty well in western and southern Illinois as well as in the Chicago area. And Illinois could be sending as few as three Republicans to Congress. We'll see when the numbers all shake out. How much did the new legislative boundaries that were drawn by the Democrats help determine winners in these races?

Lynn Sweet: Oh, it was an enormous an enormous help, look no further than McHenry County in northern Illinois to see how that county was uh fileted in order to loot it's Republican base. So if indeed, it turns out to be 14-3, then it shows that this gerrymandering, especially for this snake like downstate district - if you think of a map in Illinois, and then you kind of just see a little uh curly Q district going up from around central Illinois towards Mississippi, then you'll see what a definition of gerrymandering is. But because of the overwhelming Democratic infrastructure in Springfield, there is no objection to it, as there might have been in other states. So the winds reflect the map makers intent.

Melba Lara: Lynn always great to get your expertise. Thanks for talking with us. 

Lynn Sweet: Thank you very much.

Melba Lara: That's Lynn Sweet who covers Washington for the Chicago Sun-Times. This is WBEZ.

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