Alexi Giannoulias cruises to victory in Democratic race for Illinois Secretary of State, will face Dan Brady in November

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Former Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias won the Democratic nomination for Illinois Secretary of State on Tuesday, defeating three other candidates, as longtime Democratic incumbent Jesse White prepares to retire.

With 63% of the vote counted, Giannolias was leading with 53% of the vote over his closest rival, City Clerk Anna Valencia, who had 34%. Chicago Ald. David Moore (17th) and Homewood resident Sidney Moore both were in single digits.

Giannoulias will go on to face Republican Dan Brady in the general election.

Along with a platform of ethics, Giannoulias ran on a pledge of modernizing the Secretary of State's office and reducing the amount of time people spend waiting in line for driver's licenses, license plates, and other documents.

"To regain your trust, government has to respect how valuable your time is. That is why I'm going to end the time tax, and make sure you spend less time in line for filling out forms that cut through the red tape and bureaucracy," he said.

It's the first time the Democrats had an open primary in the Secretary of State's race since longtime incumbent Jesse White defeated Tim McCarthy in the 1998 primary. White went unchallenged in every Democratic primary ever since.

The race was also Giannoulias' first foray back into Illinois politics since he lost his bid for former President Barack Obama's old Senate seat in 2010, falling to Mark Kirk by less than 60,000 votes.

Following a nasty campaign in that race, Giannoulias and Kirk met the famous Billy Goat Tavern on Lower Michigan Avenue downtown to bury the hatchet over a beer.

Kirk went on to serve one term in the U.S. Senate before he was defeated by Tammy Duckworth in 2016. Meantime, Giannoulias quietly disappeared from the spotlight until White made it official last year that he wasn't going to run for a seventh term.

Giannoulias was one of the first Democratic candidates to throw their hats in the ring as several people announced they were considering a run, including Valencia, who set her sight on climbing the ladder from citywide office to statewide office, just like her predecessor as clerk, Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza.

While Giannoulias raised far more campaign cash than his three rivals combined, amassing a $4.4 million warchest, and won the backing of more prominent labor unions, Valencia won the endorsements of most of Illinois' top Democratic elected officials, including White himself, as well as Gov. JB Pritzker, and both U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth.

With their frontrunner status, however, has also come their fair share of scrutiny over ethics questions for both Giannoulias and Valencia.

Valencia has repeatedly attacked Giannoulias over the failure of his family's bank, Broadway Bank, which also played a role in his loss in the U.S. Senate race against Mark Kirk in 2010. She's raised questions about the role he played as the bank's senior loan officer when it issued questionable loans, including to some crime figures. 

At the same time, Giannoulias has attacked Valencia over her husband's lobbying practices. She didn't disclose on city ethics statements that her husband was a lobbyist for Monterrey Security, which has received millions of dollars in city contracts over the years. He's also raised questions about her apparent use of official city email to solicit business for her husband's lobbying practice. 

David Moore, meantime, has run a relatively threadbare campaign, after raising a comparatively paltry $70,000 in contributions. A member of the City Council's progressive caucus serving in his second term in the 17th Ward on the South Side, Moore has understandably struggled to gain the same traction as the frontrunners while seeking to boost his political profile beyond his own ward.

Sidney Moore's campaign has been practically non-existent, with no formal organization or reported fundraising.

All four candidates agree the Secretary of State's office needs to be modernized, with Valencia pushing to create an online portal for renewing driver's licenses, Giannoulias proposing to allow the state's more vulnerable residents to make appointments online so they don't have to wait in line, and David Moore seeking to create digital license plates which would help police catch carjackers by displaying the word "stolen" if a car is reported as carjacked.