Esther Joy King is running again. The Republican that ran against Cheri Bustos for Illinois’ 17th District Congressional seat will make the official announcement Thursday in East Moline at The Rust Belt in East Moline. It’s been a poorly kept secret that King would run again. She made that intention clear in an email sent on the same day Rep. Bustos announced she wouldn’t run for another term in 2022. King wrote that Bustos “always claimed she knew this district well – so she clearly saw what we’re seeing every day: IL-17 was going to make a change in 2022 and Cheri was destined to lose.” While King got closer to beating Bustos in 2020 than any of her opponents in 5 successful campaigns, King still lost by 4 points in a district carried by Donald Trump twice. King said in that email “this district deserves so much better than what the liberal elites have been serving them up in Washington.” King is the daughter of Christian missionaries that lived in a converted school bus and later moved to the U.S.-Mexico border. She earned her law degree and a master’s of law in taxation from Northwestern University in Chicago. She’s also a Captain in the U.S. Army Reserves as a member of the JAG Corps.
