Rock Island — In case you missed it, Eric Sorensen was featured in a USA Today profile about how his background as a local TV meteorologist and a trusted neighbor has fueled his success in Congress. Now, he’s encouraging other broadcasters to step up and serve.

Read the full article here and below:

USA TODAY: The ex-weatherman who wants more local TV stars in Congress

Jay Stahl

Local TV stars from Miami to Pennsylvania are running for office. One former weatherman hopes breaking news experience will help fix a stalled Congress.

• Sorensen, a Democrat who has served in Congress since 2023, recalled in a recent interview with USA TODAY, “I tell people back home, I got to Washington without – it wasn’t just political baggage – I didn’t even have a political carry-on.”

• The two-term congressman is now campaigning for a third term amid a bipartisan lineup of candidates across the country who are also wielding their breaking news bona fides to serve in a stalled House.

Eric Sorensen

‘Looking out for people’ sets up local news stars for Congress

• Former Rep. Cheri Bustos, who ran House Democrats’ campaign arm, announced her retirement in 2021, sparking questions from Republicans about whether a Democrat could regain the seat. As he tells it, Sorensen was sitting in the studio at his former station, ABC affiliate WQAD, when Bustos decided not to seek reelection. Two on-air colleagues told him to run. He rebuffed their suggestion.

• Later that night, Sorensen, who shares a dog Petey with his partner Shawn, reconsidered. “The 20 years that I spent in this congressional district looking out for people, maybe that was setting me up for that job,” Sorensen recalled thinking.

• A Rockford native, Sorensen flexed his name recognition, gained from more than two decades on local television, to prevail over a well-funded Republican opponent, Esther Joy King.

• Sorensen later became a mentor to Janelle Stelson, a Democrat who is campaigning to unseat Perry, the Republican incumbent, in Pennsylvania’s 10th district in November. Stelson lost a close race to him last cycle.

• Sorensen said that Stelson’s experience delivering the nightly news on Lancaster, Pennsylvania’s NBC station, WGAL, makes her uniquely suited to serve in Congress.

• “I told her the way that you’re going to win is with one word: trusted,” Sorensen recalled. “I said, ‘You were the trusted person to people when they were in really bad situations, when they were down at the end of their rope.'”

• Sorensen said local TV anchors like Stelson can rely on their chops from the anchor desk to gain voters’ trust. “There’s the worst news, and then that anchor can find the right words and the right tone to help people get through a crisis,” he said.

• Back in Illinois, Sorensen said it will be difficult for local journalists, including meteorologists, across the country to survive as local TV companies consolidate and stations shutter altogether.

• He wants meteorologists to take stock of the value they hold with their viewers and possible political constituents – and consider the same path he took.

• “I want meteorologists to ask the question, ‘Is it time for me to serve in a different way?’ Because now is the time that we need more meteorologists in Congress,” Sorensen said.

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Sean Leary Director of Digital Media

Sean Leary is an author, director, artist, musician, producer and entrepreneur who has been writing professionally since debuting at age 11 in the pages of the Comics Buyers Guide. An honors graduate of the University of Southern California masters program, he has written over 50 books including the best-sellers The Arimathean, Every Number is Lucky to Someone and We Are All Characters.