Just a few hours ago I was attending a meeting of St. Charles County Pachyderm Club (which I used to attend regularly, every week, from mid-1989 through most of 2004), and I heard someone announce they are going to run for Senate District 23 next year, which means he is going to run against Christofanelli in the GOP primary. Today might not have been the first time he's made such an announcement, but I heard him say it today. That person is Rich Chrismer, whom I very clearly remember from the first time he ran for office 31 years ago, and who I continued having conversations with throughout the 1990's, and had some conversations in recent years. Rich knows that I'm gay, and so I'm sure he knows about Rep. Christofanelli too. Rich ran for the same Senate district 23 years ago! Here is his entire electoral history:
August 1992, Republican primary for state Rep. district 16:
Chrismer - 1,165 (46.8%)/ Ehlert - 696 (27.8%)/ Fricke - 629 (25.3%)
November 1992, general election for same district:
Chrismer - 7,748 (51.5%)/ Kendall (D) - 7,297 (48.5%)
November 1994, (unopposed in GOP primary), same district
Chrismer - 7,384 (60.0%)/ Hahn (D) - 4,913 (40.0%)
November 1996, (unopposed in GOP primary), same district
Chrismer - 9,394 (62.5%)/ Tomlinson (D) - 5,637 (37.5%)
November 1998, (unopposed in GOP primary), same district
Chrismer - 8,550 (86.0%)/ Hodge (L) - 1,388 (14.0%)
August 2000, Republican primary for state Sen. District 23 (which encompassed 2/3s of the county during the 90's)
Chuck Gross - 7,033 (52.84%)/ Rich Chrismer - 6,277 (47.16%)
2002 - Chrismer was elected to the position of St. Charles County Election Authority (a.k.a., Director of Elections) (This office was "new" as of that year. It was previously the County Clerk's job to be in charge of running the elections, but a change to the County Charter resulted in the position being given a new title. Several previous elections for the position of County Clerk had been won by Democrat Jim Primm.) (I'm currently trying to research, via email with that office, the actual results of the primary and general elections of 2002.)
November 2006, (unopposed in GOP primary), SCC Director of Elections
Chrismer - 71,568 (58.3%)/ Tracy (D) - 51,182 (41.7%)
November 2010, (unopposed in GOP primary), SCC Director of Elections
Chrismer - 95,748 (100.0%)
August 2014, GOP primary, SCC Director of Elections
Chrismer - 19,399 (50.8%)/ York - 15,516 (40.6%)/ Dienoff - 3,284 (8.6%)
November 2014, general election, SCC Director of Elections
Chrismer - 58,466 (63.0%)/ Runyan (D) - 34,343 (37.0%) (In the same election, my brother-in-law was the D nominee for County Executive; he was unopposed in the primary, but he lost overwhelmingly in the general election.)
I don't think Rich has run for any other offices since his 2014 reelection.
A race between Chrismer and Christofanelli is certainly not going to come down to just the fact the one is straight and the other is gay, there's also going to be a huge age difference.
Primary is safe Chrismer. Republicans aren't going to vote for a gay man if there's another choice on the ballot.
