SPRINGFIELD — Chicago North Side voters have unfailingly sent Sara Feigenholtz to the Illinois General Assembly since 1994, but the Democratic Party of Illinois has spent nearly $190,000 in the last month to defend the 31-year incumbent from an upstart progressive challenger who was born two years after her first electoral victory.

The state party’s six-figure expenditure for mailers supporting Feigenholtz’s campaign for state Senate began Feb. 13 and is nearly double the amount the party has spent on any other General Assembly candidate since September — the next closest being House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch at $95,000, who is running to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Danny Davis on the state central committee.

Feigenholtz faces 29-year-old Nick Uniejewski, a former policy analyst for the city of Chicago who’s won the support of several progressive organizations.

“Senator Feigenholtz is very proud of the broad coalition of Illinoisans supporting her campaign,” campaign manager Bella Devens said in a statement. “We don’t take any votes for granted and will be working around the clock through Tuesday to ensure every single voter can make their voice heard. It is not unusual for the party to invest in an incumbent senator’s campaign, and we’re grateful for the support of the Democratic Party of Illinois.”

Uniejewski said he thinks the party’s big spending to help his opponent signals a lack of confidence in Feigenholtz’s electoral chances and that the race is representative of elections across the country where Democratic officials are staunchly defending “old guard candidates” from energetic young progressives.

“This race is really indicative of where we are in the Democratic Party right now. It is a realignment for what does it mean to be a Democrat?” Uniejewski said. “And for me, it means fighting a lot harder for our most vulnerable neighbors. It’s rejecting corporate money, you know? It’s rejecting this outside influence that is just so focused on keeping power, holding seats that they’ve held for a long time.”

Democratic Party of Illinois spokesperson Gwen Pepin said the party’s support of Feigenholtz was not spurred by concern that she might lose.

“It’s less about anxiety and more about educating the electorate on what she’s done for the last 15 years,” Pepin said.

Feigenholtz’s lone electoral defeat in her 30 years in politics came at the hands of Mike Quigley in 2009, when she came in third in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ 5th Congressional District special election.

While Feigenholtz has been a mainstay in state politics, this is her first time with a primary challenger in a state legislative race since she defeated long-standing incumbent Democratic state Rep. Ellis Levin for his seat in 1996. The Chicago native’s three-decade General Assembly career was mostly spent in the House before she was appointed to replace retiring Senate President John Cullerton in 2020.

And this is the first reelection campaign for Feigenholtz since she faced calls to resign in 2024 from some faith groups who called her praise of Mosab Hassan Yousef, a critic of Hamas and Islam, Islamophobic.

“Westerners who praise Islam are bootlickers,” Yousef said in a 2024 post on X. “If they love Islam and Muslims, why don’t they move to an Islamic country and stick their heads in the dirt multiple times a day for enlightenment?”

“MHY… you are one badass truth teller,” Feigenholtz replied.

Feigenholtz later deleted the post and apologized, calling her response a “mistake.”

“I apologized in 2024 and asked people to not judge me on the worst day in all my time serving. Since then I’ve been doing the work to build bridges,” Feigenholtz said in a statement Friday. “We can only progress toward peace by hearing more than one persons truth.”

Beyond the state party, Feigenholtz has also received $31,000 in campaign support from Illinois Senate President Don Harmon’s Illinois Senate Democratic Fund since October, more than any other candidate he’s contributed to.

Even without the party support of Feigenholtz’s campaign, Uniejewski is lagging behind the state senator in fundraising. According to the most recent quarterly reports published in December, Feigenholtz had $1.2 million in her campaign bank account compared to Uniejewski’s $33,600.

On Thursday, the Illinois State Board of Elections lifted the cap on contributions for the remaining few days of the primary election after Feigenholtz accrued more than $100,000 in support from three political action committees — the Illinois Realtors Fund, the American Future PAC, which is funded by DraftKings and Common Ground Collective, a Chicago progressive issue advocacy organization.

Elsewhere in the state, the Democratic Party of Illinois has spent $52,000 supporting Springfield Democratic state Sen. Doris Turner, who won her last general election by 1,400 votes, and another $46,000 to help Northwest Side state Rep. Jaime Andrade, who, like Feigenholtz, faces a young progressive challenger.

Uniejewski’s endorsements include progressive advocacy groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Sunrise Movement Chicago.

Progressive Chicago Democrats like North Side Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth, 48th, are backing Uniejewski. So is former U.S. Rep. Marie Newman, for whom Uniejewski worked as campaign manager.

Uniejewski’s campaign to represent parts of the Lincoln Park, Lakeview and Gold Coast neighborhoods centers around housing and zoning reforms. If elected, he would be the second openly gay state senator in Illinois history — behind state Sen. Mike Simmons, who is running for Congress in the 9th District.

Feigenholtz backers include a mix of labor groups such as the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the local Teamsters branch, as well as several statewide and local Democrats, including Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas and retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky.

Tuesday’s primary election winner will move on to the November general election, where they will be heavily favored to win the Democratic-leaning district, especially given that no Republicans are running in the primary.