Macon Reporter

Illinois 13th Congressional District GOP candidate Regan Deering conceded to Democrat Nikki Buzinski.

Deering told supporters that "the best things take time. That time can be confusing, uncomfortable, and even painful." During her speech, she told her supporters "not to accept defeat. Because in the morning the sun will rise. And when it does, let’s let the sweet song of democracy fill our hearts again." 

"Thank you for being here tonight," Deering said in a statement prepared for election night. "Even in this moment of disappointment, it is amazing to be with the people who encouraged me to run and have supported our campaign. Thank you to my staff who guided me on this journey. Their dedication is inspiring and motivating and I could not have done this without them. Thank you also to all of the volunteers, chairpeople, committee people, and leaders who took me in as a political outsider to help work for our common goals."

Deering added that despite the fact it wasn't the outcome she and the people who believe in her "worked for, prayed for, and voted for," and "may not have won this election" she was positive that they have won "the hearts and minds of many people in this district who didn’t have a place in politics before." 

"We created a seat at a table that we weren’t invited to, that we were never expected to hold," Deering said. "We stood up for life when many other people were backing away. We showed that you can be a conservative woman and be taken seriously. We proved that here in Central Illinois, we can put up a fight. We're sad because we see so clearly what freedom looks like, and angry that others can be so content to take it away. But, mostly, time makes us tired. Tired of fighting and waiting. Tired of settling for the status quo. In the exhaustion that comes with defeat, we may even want to give up."

"The human path to progress always begins with hope," Deering said. "Hope that our defeats and disappointments will transform into resolve. Hope that ideas will overcome our challenges for change. Hope that through the persistence of passion we will, one day, move forward. Stronger than failure and undefined by fate, it is hope that allows us to keep going, to keep striving. We move forward because we know that the only way to keep change alive is to believe that next time will be our time." 

Though she didn't get to deliver a victory speech, "it is also not a speech of defeat," she said. 

"As the great suffragettes who fought and won my right to vote and run for office would say: Forward out of darkness - Leave behind the night. Forward out of error… Forward, into light. I will not lose sight of our goals. And I will keep working to bring more light to our community in every way I can. God bless you, God bless America, and God bless us all in our continued quest for liberty and freedom."

Deering also thanked her children, Mac, Lily, and Cate. They "are my reason and my why," she said. She also thanked her mother, whom she described as her greatest role model, founding rock, and best friend. Deering also thought about her father and said she knows "he would be proud of me." She also thanked her husband Brian for supporting and believing in her. "[A]nd for always making me feel like this was a mission instead of a burden," Deering said.

Deering notched 45.3% of the vote with 106,853 votes to Buzinski’s 54.7% of the vote with 129,243 votes, according to The New York Times.

Deering, in a streamed conversation with Shannon Adcock of Awake IL, recalled her fight over COVID protocols forced on students, saying she “made it very clear throughout that it was never an anti-mask position, it was just an anti-mandate position, and the government overreach out of Pritzker was just too much. And I feel like this still continues to be a really slippery slope and we need people to stand in the gap.”

The director of Family PAC Federal, Paul Caprio, urged voters to research the credentials of the contenders in the Illinois 13th Congressional District contest and put his support behind Deering, given her support of state’s rights after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.