Cook County Comm. Monica Gordon (D-5) is pictured at a September 2023 board meeting. [Don Vincent/The Daily Line]

Cook County Comm. Monica Gordon (D-5) has won the race for Cook County Clerk, after the Associated Press called the race Tuesday evening.

As of 9:12 p.m. Tuesday, Gordon had earned 65.3 percent of the vote, and her Republican opponent Michelle Pennington, who runs a real estate investment, management and development firm, had earned 30.4 percent. Libertarian Christopher Laurent had earned 4.3 percent of the vote. 

Gordon, a former director of government affairs and community relations at Chicago State University, was elected to the county board of commissioners in 2022. 

Gordon was slated by the Cook County Democratic Party following former Clerk Karen Yarbrough’s death in April. The clerk-elect will serve out the remaining two years of Yarbrough’s unexpired term. Yarbrough won reelection in 2022. 

Chief Deputy Clerk Cedric Giles has been serving as interim county clerk since the spring. Gordon will be sworn in next month.