Jacqueline McGowan

Jacqueline McGowan (Democratic Party) (also known as Jackie) ran for election to the U.S. House to represent Illinois' 17th Congressional District. She lost in the Democratic primary on June 28, 2022.

McGowan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.

Biography

Jacqueline McGowan was born in San Bernardino, California. Her career experience includes working as a cannabis policy expert and advisor and as an institutional equity derivatives broker. McGowan has been affiliated with NORML and NCIAxc.^[1]

Elections

2022

General election

General election for U.S. House Illinois District 17

Eric Sorensen defeated Esther Joy King in the general election for U.S. House Illinois District 17 on November 8, 2022.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Eric Sorensen (D)	52.0	121,186
	Esther Joy King (R)	48.0	111,931
	Other/Write-in votes	0.0	6

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 233,123
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Natasha Thompson-Devine (Independent)

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. House Illinois District 17

The following candidates ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. House Illinois District 17 on June 28, 2022.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Eric Sorensen	37.7	14,702
	Litesa Wallace	23.3	9,103
	Jonathan Logemann	14.4	5,628
	Angie Normoyle	12.4	4,818
	Marsha Williams	6.9	2,701
	Jacqueline McGowan	5.2	2,040
	Other/Write-in votes	0.0	14

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 39,006
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. House Illinois District 17

Esther Joy King defeated Charlie Helmick in the Republican primary for U.S. House Illinois District 17 on June 28, 2022.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Esther Joy King	68.5	31,065
	Charlie Helmick	31.5	14,274

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 45,339
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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2021

Gavin Newsom yes/no recall question

Gavin Newsom recall, 2021

Gavin Newsom won the Governor of California recall election on September 14, 2021.

	Recall Vote	%	Votes
	Yes	38.1	4,894,473
✔	No	61.9	7,944,092
	Total Votes		12,838,565

It has been certified. Source

Gavin Newsom replacement question

The ordering on the candidate list below does not reflect the order in which candidates will appear on the recall ballot. Click here to read Ballotpedia's policy on ordering candidate lists.

General election

Special general election for Governor of California

The following candidates ran in the special general election for Governor of California on September 14, 2021.

	Candidate	%	Votes
	Larry Elder (R)	48.4	3,563,867
	Kevin Paffrath (D)	9.6	706,778
	Kevin Faulconer (R)	8.0	590,346
	Brandon Ross (D)	5.3	392,029
	John Cox (R)	4.1	305,095
	Kevin Kiley (R)	3.5	255,490
	Jacqueline McGowan (D)	2.9	214,242
	Joel Ventresca (D)	2.5	186,345
	Daniel Watts (D)	2.3	167,355
	Holly Baade (D)	1.3	92,218
	Patrick Kilpatrick (D)	1.2	86,617
	Armando Perez-Serrato (D)	1.2	85,061
	Caitlyn Jenner (R)	1.0	75,215
	John Drake (D)	0.9	68,545
	Daniel Kapelovitz (G)	0.9	64,375
	Jeff Hewitt (L)	0.7	50,378
	Ted Gaines (R)	0.7	47,937
	Angelyne (No party preference)	0.5	35,900
	David Moore (No party preference)	0.4	31,224
	Anthony Trimino (R)	0.4	28,101
	Doug Ose (R) (Unofficially withdrew)	0.4	26,204
	Michael Loebs (No party preference)	0.3	25,468
	Heather Collins (G)	0.3	24,260
	Major Singh (No party preference)	0.3	21,394
	David Lozano (R)	0.3	19,945
	Denver Stoner (R)	0.3	19,588
	Samuel Gallucci (R)	0.2	18,134
	Steven Chavez Lodge (R)	0.2	17,435
	Jenny Rae Le Roux (R)	0.2	16,032
	David Bramante (R)	0.2	11,501
	Diego Martinez (R)	0.1	10,860
	Robert Newman (R)	0.1	10,602
	Sarah Stephens (R)	0.1	10,583
	Dennis Richter (No party preference)	0.1	10,468
	Major Williams (R) (Write-in)	0.1	8,965
	Denis Lucey (No party preference)	0.1	8,182
	James Hanink (No party preference)	0.1	7,193
	Daniel Mercuri (R)	0.1	7,110
	Chauncey Killens (R)	0.1	6,879
	Leo Zacky (R)	0.1	6,099
	Kevin Kaul (No party preference)	0.1	5,600
	David Hillberg (R)	0.1	4,435
	Adam Papagan (No party preference)	0.1	4,021
	Rhonda Furin (R)	0.1	3,964
	Nickolas Wildstar (R)	0.1	3,811
	Jeremiah Marciniak (No party preference)	0.0	2,894
	Joe Symmon (R)	0.0	2,397
Submit photo	Miki Habryn (No party preference) (Write-in)	0.0	137
Submit photo	Roxanne (D) (Write-in)	0.0	116
Submit photo	Stacy Smith (D) (Write-in)	0.0	81
Submit photo	Vivek Mohan (No party preference) (Write-in)	0.0	68
Submit photo	Thuy Hugens (American Independent Party of California) (Write-in)	0.0	19
Submit photo	Vince Lundgren (No party preference) (Write-in)	0.0	5

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 7,361,568
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Karen Blake (R)
Mariana Dawson (No party preference)
Veronika Fimbres (G)
Elizabeth Floyd (No party preference)
Wayne Frazier (R)
Timothy Herode (R)
Luis Huang (D)
Jimih Jones (R)
Paul Mesrop Kurdian (No party preference)
Carla Canada (No party preference)
Mary Cook (No party preference)
Torr Leonard (D)
Jeremy Lupoli (D)
Louis J. Marinelli, III (R)
Christopher Mason (R)
John Pierce (R)
Patrick Rakus Jr. (R)
Frank Wade (D)
Marc Roth (No party preference)
Christopher Carlson (G)
Douglas Deitch (D)
Bryan Farley (D)
Justin Hubbard (R)
Jason Dixon (D)
Sean Harrison (R)
Ronald Palmieri (D)
Ben Zandpour (No party preference)
Robert Davidson Griffis (D)
A. Shantz (G)
Adam Hadjinian (No party preference)
Michael Lynn Gabriel (No party preference)
Hilaire Shioura (No party preference)
Lee Olson (No party preference)
Joseph Luciano (R)
Steven Fitzgerald (R)
Anthony Fanara (D)
Jemiss Nazar (No party preference)
Kevin Abushi (R)
Joseph Amey (American Independent Party of California)

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

Jacqueline McGowan completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by McGowan's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I was born and raised in California and moved to Chicago after high school. This is when I began an 18 year career as a stock broker; 9 of those years in Illinois and another 9 in New York. After a very successful career in a fast paced and male dominated industry where I negotiated high stakes deals, I left to become a cannabis policy advisor.

The proudest project I worked on was where my two career worlds collided, I helped facilitate the sale of an abandoned prison for a cannabis company due to both my negotiating skills, and my cannabis policy expertise, I helped ensure that this process was fully compliant with local, state, and federal laws. This facility is now growing cannabis where it used to grow food for inmates.

I aspire to become the first openly proud cannabis consuming Congressperson in D.C. and feel that more of us need to be open about our use of this plant in order to help destigmatize this type of medical consumption.

Congress is an exceptionally brutal field and I feel I am the most dominating and most qualified Democrat to represent this wonderful district of hard working people.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

I am certain that I am the most qualifed candidate to beat a Trump Republican in this District. I offer the greatest probability of retaining this a blue seat. I have a proven record of differenting myself and thriving in challenging , competitive, and demanding situations.
Like the majority of my constituents, I know what it takes to be self made, and self driven. I understand how important and valuable the access to opportunity is and how Congress must continue to invest in our District to create opportunities.
We have several great candidates but I don't believe they are as tough as I am. I am goal oriented and outcome driven. My goal is singularly focused and that is to keep this seat blue. I will not rest until I have exhausted every possible path to ensuring that Kevin McCarthy does not become the next Speaker of the House. There is no more ruthless environment than Wall Street, and there is no more convoluted political environment than in the cannabis policy space and I have exceptional experience and success in both of these arenas. It is my experience that makes me the most qualified to go into this political shark tank and succeed in fighting for the hard working people in District 17.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I am very concerned about the destruction of Roe vs. Wade and will fight hard to codify women's reproductive rights into law. Illinois must continue to be the safe haven that it is for women to travel to this great state to ensure their right to safe access is protected.

I am also extremely concerned with companies that are price gouging during this high inflationary times. I look forward to supporting the "Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act" in order to assess and address the fact that energy companies are making record profits this year.

I am personally passionate about legalizing cannabis at the federal level and in a way that it doesn't disrupt what currently exists across the Country. I would like to begin with independent legislation to release 40,000 non violent cannabis criminals across the nation.

The best path to sustaining the US as Number 1 in the world is though education. We need to ensure that an associates degree is attainable by all in just the same way a high school diploma is.

Who do you look up to? Whose example would you like to follow, and why?

It truly depends on what hour of the day you ask me this question. If you would have asked a few weeks ago it would be Adam Kinzinger, and Liz Chaney as well as Joe Manchin, and Kristin Sinema. All of these elected officials have been willing to sacrifice their careers in order to do what's best for their constituents. I pledge to do the same.

If asked this question last night I would have said Abraham Lincoln for freeing the slaves, or Elanore Roosevelt for addressing segregation. I aspire to address institutional racism due to the fact that I was raised by a racist and I understand this issue more than my competitors on how we fix this.

Yet a consistent answer for me would always be that the Obama Administration was my most admired. I aspire to be as classy, as effective, and as compassionate and as they all were.

Is there a book, essay, film, or something else you would recommend to someone who wants to understand your political philosophy?

City So Real is a docuseries that tracked the political campaigns of all of the candidates for Mayor of Chicago in the last cycle. This is and has been a huge influence of philosophy of how dirty this entire game is and on how absolutely dependent the voters are on finding the ones that have a good heart and a strong nose in order to raid into this swamp and do the right thing.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

There are main two driving factors to creating successful politicians. The first is that they must be able to enter extremely contentious situations and also be able to navigate and implement success for their distirct's policy goals.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

Honest and transparency with their constituencies on what is and was able to be accomplished. They also have to be able to articulate where they have fail.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

I became a cannabis advocate at the age of 8. I realized at this age that my abusive father did not harm my mother when he was smoking that stuff. So even though I believed in Santa Clause at that time, I asked my mom how much weed cost. She had a minor melt down thinking her 8 year old was smoking pot, but I assured her that I just wanted to go hustle selling sodas at construction sites in order to pay for a bag. I had $17 dollars saved at the time and my mother was 9 months pregnant with my brother. I knew if I could buy him a bag that the beatings would stop and that my little brother would be born ok.

Cannabis has now become the best natural medicine I have ever know and I aspire to be the first openly proud cannabis Congresswoman in office.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

I worked at a Wendy's in high school and I had that job for 3 years.

What is your favorite book? Why?

"Art of the Deal" by Donald Trump......just kidding!!

My favorite book is the "Alchemist"

If you could be any fictional character, who would you want to be?

Robinhood

What was the last song that got stuck in your head?

"I Can't Stop"-by Flux Pavillion

What qualities does the U.S. House of Representatives possess that makes it unique as an institution?

The US House of Representatives it truly the government that is directly properly elected, and because of that you do not see any more honest representation of what the people think and feel.

Do you believe that it's beneficial for representatives to have previous experience in government or politics?

Having experience in any job is usually a very good thing, however in politics they have either existing biases or existing financial relationships that cloud their judgment or influence their policy making in a way that deters the will of their constituents.

What do you perceive to be the United States’ greatest challenges as a nation over the next decade?

We are heading straight into a recession and there is no way to deny that. Rising inflation usually is due to a roaring economy. This one is slightly different. This one is being caused by price gouging and supply chain issues. Studying economics, one would know that rising interests is the go to solution for inflation. However, this inflation wasn't caused by the usual. I believe we need to create company incentives for green energy and job training for when those jobs arrive in order to proceed through this transition into a green new world.

If you are not a current representative, are there certain committees that you would want to be a part of?

I would aspire to honor the esteemed Congresswoman Bustos' legacy of serving on both the Appropriations Committee and the Agricultural Committee so I could continue to implement the bills she has passed throughout her tenure.

Do you believe that two years is the right term length for representatives?

I do not agree that this term limit is effective in true representation in Congress for those that elected them. Fundraising is an extremely time commitment that results in a less accessible representative for their constituents. I believe the limit should raised to 4 years.

What are your thoughts on term limits?

I think it takes time to achieve power and allies in Washington D.C. I don't think that trajectory to achieving those tools should be prohibited by any longer term limit than 16 years. I would also support Grandfathering in all of the current office makers that were elected under unlimited terms.

Both sitting representatives and candidates for office hear many personal stories from the residents of their district. Is there a story that you’ve heard that you found particularly touching, memorable, or impactful?

While out signature gathering, I encountered a family of African Americans. They wanted to discuss a few issues before they signed my petition. The first was the Democrats message of "Defunding the Police." They explained to me that this actually caused a bigger rift between them and law enforcement and that their messaging was off. It always should have been "Reform the Police," according to my constituents.

Tell us your favorite joke.

Q. Why did the housewife cross the road?

A. I'm not sure, she's supposed to be in the kitchen.

Do you believe that compromise is necessary or desirable for policymaking?

As a pro second amendment proponent, I am also a mass shooting survivor when I was 16. This issue made me wish back then that there were better assessments on individuals buying guns so quickly, but it did not make me wish to stomp on the rights of legal owners. I believe the only way through this issue is to have true compromise. Waiting periods and raising the legal age limit on when you can buy an assault rifle are where both parties are going to have to meet in the middle.

Compromise is the only path through the divisive times we live in.

The Constitution says that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House. What role would this power play in your priorities if elected?

I would begin by looking at emerging markets and how we could attract those businesses to this District. I had extreme power working on Wall St and I walked away from that. This new power wouldn't be new to me at all and I would continue to put the hard working people of my District first.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

2021

Jacqueline McGowan did not complete Ballotpedia's 2021 Candidate Connection survey.

External links

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Candidate

U.S. House Illinois District 17

Personal

Footnotes

↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on May 31, 2022

[show]

Illinois' current delegation to the United States Congress

Senators

Tammy Duckworth (D)

Dick Durbin (D)

Representatives

District 1

Jonathan Jackson (D)

District 2

Robin Kelly (D)

District 3

Delia Ramirez (D)

District 4

Jesus Garcia (D)

District 5

Mike Quigley (D)

District 6

Sean Casten (D)

District 7

Danny Davis (D)

District 8

Raja Krishnamoorthi (D)

District 9

Jan Schakowsky (D)

District 10

Brad Schneider (D)

District 11

Bill Foster (D)

District 12

Mike Bost (R)

District 13

Nikki Budzinski (D)

District 14

Lauren Underwood (D)

District 15

Mary Miller (R)

District 16

Darin LaHood (R)

District 17

Eric Sorensen (D)

Democratic Party (16)

Republican Party (3)

[1] Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on May 31, 2022

[1]

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Jacqueline McGowan

Contents

Biography

Elections

2022

General election

General election for U.S. House Illinois District 17

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for U.S. House Illinois District 17

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Republican primary election

Republican primary for U.S. House Illinois District 17

2021

Gavin Newsom yes/no recall question

Gavin Newsom recall, 2021

Gavin Newsom replacement question

General election

Special general election for Governor of California

Withdrawn or disqualified candidates

Campaign themes

2022

Ballotpedia survey responses

2021

See also

External links

Footnotes

Information about voting

2026 Elections

2025 Elections

Election analysis

Trending

Public Policy

Information for candidates

Get Engaged

Services

Additional analysis

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