Darin LaHood

A campaign spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood told Shaw Local on Monday that the congressman was absent from a Dixon candidate forum last week because he was hosting an event in Peoria.

Discover Dixon hosted the forum Oct. 6 at The Dixon: Historic Theatre for those campaigning to represent Illinois’s 16th District in the U.S. House of Representatives and the 74th District in the Illinois House of Representatives to answer community members’ questions.

At the forum, Democratic nominee Paul Nolley of Rockford, who is running against the incumbent Republican nominee LaHood for the U.S. House seat, noted his opponent’s absence, saying he’s “scared to face people in a setting like this.”

LaHood initially did not respond to Shaw Local’s request for comment about his absence, but a campaign spokesperson later provided a statement.

The day of the Dixon forum, “LaHood hosted his annual Military Service Academy open house for students and families at the 182nd Airlift Wing in Peoria,” the spokesperson said.

“This event is planned months in advance, and this year’s event unfortunately conflicted with the candidate forum in Dixon, and the organizers were notified. Congressman LaHood remains committed to being accessible and engaged with the people of the 16th District while balancing those commitments with his official duties as a sitting member of Congress,” they said.

Nolley and LaHood ran unopposed in the March 19 primary election. The general election is Nov. 3.

LaHood was elected to his first term representing Illinois in the U.S. House in 2016 and, before that, represented the 37th District in the state Senate from 2011 to 2015, according to ballotpedia.org.

Nolley is a first-time candidate and has served as executive director of Project First Rate since 2020. PFR is a nonprofit labor-management organization based in Rockford that promotes job site safety, fair wages, and sustainable building in northern Illinois.

The 16th District spans 21 counties across northwestern and central Illinois. It includes over 725,000 constituents in Lee, Ogle, Stephenson, Jo Daviess, Winnebago, Boone, McHenry, Henry, Bureau, La Salle, Peoria, Stark, Putnam, DeKalb, Grundy, Marshall, Livingston, Woodford, Tazewell, McLean, and Ford counties.

To learn more about the candidates, visit nolleyforcongress.com and lahood.house.gov.

Payton Felix reports on Lee County and the surrounding areas. She specializes in longterm, investigative coverage and serves on Shaw Local's regional healthcare team. She's a 2023 University of Illinois at Chicago graduate, joined Shaw Local in March 2024 and was awarded for her coverage of steer-tailing in 2025.