Miller defeats fellow House Ag member Davis in Illinois district

First-term Rep. Mary Miller easily won the Republican nomination to the House over veteran Rep. Rodney Davis in an Illinois primary election that she framed as a test of loyalty to Donald Trump. The former president endorsed Miller. Davis was one of 35 House Republicans to vote for creation of an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

Miller defeated Davis by landslide proportions in the rare match-up of incumbents in the reapportioned 15th U.S. House District, which stretches in a band across central Illinois from the Indiana border to the Mississippi River. Miller and Davis were among four Illinoisans serving on the House Agriculture Committee; Democrats Bobby Rush and Cheri Bustos did not run for re-election.

With nearly 80 percent of the vote counted, Miller held a 3-to-2 margin over Davis. Both Republicans were conservatives but Miller was a member of the House Freedom Caucus and an ally of hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. Early in his five-term career in the House, Davis played a leading role in slowing school lunch reforms on grounds they drove up costs for schools and the food did not appeal to students.

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