Our preview gives the lay of the land in every major race
Jeff Singer at The Downballot:
The 2026 primary season continues Tuesday as voters in Illinois pick candidates for state and federal offices, including in several Democratic contests that have drawn attention far outside the Land of Lincoln.
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin announced last April that he would not seek a sixth term representing this reliably blue state, leading to an expensive and unpredictable three-way battle between Rep. Robin Kelly, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton.
The decisions by Kelly and Krishnamoorthi to run statewide in turn set off packed primaries for the House districts they are giving up. There are similarly busy races underway to replace Democratic Reps. Danny Davis and Jan Schakowsky, who are both retiring after close to three decades in Congress.
The primaries for these four Democratic-friendly districts, all of which are located in or around Chicago, have been defined by massive outlays from third-party interests. Organizations affiliated with the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC, the AI industry, and the crypto sector have been responsible for most of the over $30 million in outside spending that’s been deployed across these four House races.
These well-heeled groups aren’t just interested in using their resources to promote their favored candidates and undermine contenders they’re hoping to keep out of Congress. Some candidates who have struggled to gain support have been the involuntary beneficiaries of positive ads that are in fact aimed at diverting votes away from a stronger rival.
Many of these PACs have also deployed misleading ads attacking vocal progressives as insufficiently liberal while simultaneously portraying centrists as progressive warriors. Semafor’s Dave Weigel dubbed this approach “bizarro-world branding.”
“What hasn’t changed is that these PACs run on what their strategists believe will play with Democratic primary voters, not what their funders want to achieve,” he wrote. “As a result, watching TV in Chicago makes you feel like a cordyceps fungus has taken over the Democratic Party — imitating its messaging to destroy it, just as the parasite does in the wild.”
Below, you’ll find our guide to these five races. We’re also shining a spotlight on the Democratic primary for president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, where four-term incumbent Toni Preckwinkle is fighting to remain the leader of America’s second-most populous county.
Today, we have several big primaries in Illinois. The Downballot (of which I am a paid subscriber of) has excellent coverage of the big-ticket races.
Hoping and praying for Stratton, Peters, Ford, Ahmed, Abu (or Biss), Hall, Davis, and Kim wins today.
Nikki Budzinski, a trade unionist and former Biden Administration official, and Regan Deering, a scion of the family that ran ADM for decades, face off in the Central Illinois-based seat.
Brenden Moore at Decatur Herald and Review:
SPRINGFIELD — When U.S. Rep. Bill Enyart, D-Belleville, lost his bid for reelection in the 12th Congressional District in 2014, Illinois was left without a Democratic congressperson south of Interstate 72 for the first time since at least World War II.
Though the party twice came exasperatingly close — 1,002 votes in 2012 and 2,058 votes in 2018 — to defeating Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, in the neighboring Central Illinois-based 13th Congressional District, that effort proved futile amid a shifting political terrain.
But after a decade of tough losses, false starts and unfulfilled hopes, Democrats believe 2022 is the year and Nikki Budzinski is the candidate to finally return a downstate Illinois congressional seat to the blue column.
Budzinski, a Peoria-born political consultant and labor activist, is running against Republican Regan Deering, a Decatur community activist and scion of one of the most prominent families in American agribusiness.
The pair are competing in the newly reconfigured 13th Congressional District, which was drawn by Springfield Democrats during the once-a-decade redistricting process last year with the intention of giving the party a foothold in central and southern Illinois once more.
They did this by narrowing the geographic size of the district, cutting out several conservative rural communities and consolidating the most urban, liberal portions of the Metro East region, previously split three ways, into one district.
As a result, the string bean-shaped district stretches from East St. Louis to Champaign-Urbana, picking up Springfield and Decatur in between — a mix of college towns and communities with a blend of blue- and white-collar industries. Not to mention a sizable Black population that forms an influential bloc.
This also shifted the district's partisan lean from voting for President Donald Trump by three points to one that voted for President Joe Biden by an 11-point margin in 2020. It also cut Davis out of the district, leaving it open and perhaps making for an easier path for Budzinski.
The district includes a mix of the increasingly cosmopolitan, urban base that has come to define the modern Democratic Party along with remnants of the coalition made up of unionized coal miners, steel plant workers and workers in other heavy industries that had previously made the region a Democratic stronghold.
"I think when the rubber really hits the road — the makeup of the district and we do our job turning the vote out — she will be the next Congress member from the 13th district. No doubt about it in my mind," said Sangamon County Democratic Party chair Bill Houlihan. "But these elections have ebbs and flows."
Indeed, the district's fundamentals suggest it to be a Democratic-leaning district. However, low approval ratings for Biden, sky-high inflation and the poor performance the president's party typically faces in midterm elections have given Republicans hope that the race could be within reach.
The district's working class, blue collar constituency has come to define the campaign, with each candidate laser-focusing their messaging on "kitchen table" economic issues, such as bringing down inflation.
"I think, for sure, the defining issue of this campaign is going to be the cost of living," Deering told Lee Enterprises in an interview earlier this month.
"The question is always, are you better off today than you were two years ago?" she continued. "And the answer is no."
Deering, a first-time candidate, has blamed Biden policies and, by extension, Budzinski for the rise in prices, tying it back to significant government spending during the COVID-19 pandemic. Deering, however, has been short on specific policy proposals to address the issue.
Budzinski, though also a first-time candidate, has been around politics for more than two decades, serving most recently as chief of staff for Biden's Office of Management and Budget, where she played an integral role in crafting and implementing the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
[...]
Before her stint in the Biden Administration, Budzinski was a senior adviser to Gov. J.B. Pritzker's campaign and, later, administration. She also worked for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and was in the labor movement for 10 years with the International Association of Firefighters and later the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
While Budzinski may be most associated with labor, Deering's ties are decidedly business. She is a member of the Andreas family, which ran Archer Daniels Midland Co. for nearly four decades and, in the process, transformed it from a modest regional grain processor into a world-leading company.
Deering was born in Decatur but spent most of her adolescence in the Chicago region, moving back to Soy City after getting married. She has since been involved in various philanthropic endeavors and was a small business owner.
The IL-13 seat is a very critical seat for which party has the majority in Congress. Nikki Budzinski (D) and Regan Deering (R) are battling for the right to determine who gets to represent the district stretching from Cahokia Heights to Carlinville to Decatur to Champaign/Urbana.
If Deering wins, then the GOP will have long past clinched the majority. Budzinski must win if the Dems are to have any chance at keeping the majority.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — A handful of democratic socialists who support Senator Bernie Sanders for president stalked Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan outside of a campaign event in Champaign on Monday night and attempted to block her car from leaving the event.
Mark Maxwell at WCIA:
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (NEXSTAR) — A handful of democratic socialists who support Senator Bernie Sanders for president stalked Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan outside of a campaign event in Champaign on Monday night and attempted to block her car from leaving the event.
In a Facebook Live video, the activists screamed at Londrigan and challenged her to debate Stefanie Smith, a lesser-known candidate running in the primary race in Illinois’ 13th Congressional district.
One agitator yelled, “Will you support Medicare for All?”
Londrigan participated in a candidate forum with Smith two weeks ago in Champaign, and pledged to support her if she won. Smith declined to say if she would support Londrigan if she won.
So far, according to federal campaign finance records, Smith has raised $3,593 from two Illinois donors, and another $3,201 from donors who gave less than the individual reporting threshold of $200. No polling data is available in the primary race.
Smith’s campaign has not yet responded directly to requests for comment about the incident, but she posted a response to her campaign’s Facebook page.
“It was a non-violent protest,” Smith wrote, “and if Betsy can’t handle a few people demanding a conversation about the life or death issues facing many of is [sic] in this district, she should quit now because she will not be able to handle Davis and Trump.”
She also posted a rambling video to her Facebook page appearing to further condone the actions and tactics of her supporters.
“I can’t tell you how much it meant to me when I watched the video of what happened,” Smith said.
“Apparently, people are expecting me to make a statement,” she said launching into a series of attacks against what she perceived as slights from Londrigan’s campaign.
This is ridiculously childish and intimidating behavior by some supporters of Stephanie Smith against Betsy Dirksen Londrigan. #IL13 #Twill
* Politico’s Alex Isenstadt says Bill Enyart could be dumped soon…
Despite the GOP’s troubles, Democrats remain anxious that the political environment could deteriorate still further before Election Day. They say two of their vulnerable incumbents, New Hampshire Rep. Carol Shea-Porter and Illinois Rep. Bill Enyart, may soon be lost causes and are scrambling to prevent that list from growing.
We’ll see. That’s certainly a tough district for Enyart in an off year with Pat Quinn’s numbers in the tank. But only one occupation polls lower than a sitting congressman: Illinois state legislator. Mike Bost has taken lots and lots of votes over the years.
* By the way, Bost is airing his first TV ad…
* Back to the Politico article. Most of the chatter I heard over the weekend was about Ann Callis…
Democrats have gradually narrowed their focus to protecting jeopardized incumbents and are likely to seriously invest in only the dozen or so candidates seen as realistic contenders for Republican-held seats. At the start of the cycle, for instance, national Democrats had been talking up the candidacies of Ann Callis, a former county judge running for an Illinois seat, and Amanda Renteria, a former Capitol Hill aide seeking a California seat. Neither candidate is now seen as likely to win, and neither is receiving as much attention.
The DCCC’s only evidence that they haven’t yet jettisoned Callis is their media buy reservations haven’t been canceled. Kinda thin soup.
* Meanwhile…
Katie Prill, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the GOP’s Illinois strategy has changed from defense to offense. The NRCC has spent a half million dollars on television ads to support Dold against Schneider, and a total of $1.4 million to support Mike Bost, who is facing the Democrat Enyart, and Davis in their races.
Prill singled out the Dold-Schneider race as a “huge pickup opportunity” for Republicans. Dold lost to Schneider in the independent-leaning district by about one percentage point in 2012.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has spent $800,000 on ads so far in the Dold-Schneider race, and about $3.5 million in the other two districts. U.S. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi recently appeared in Chicago to rally with Callis and Schneider, and push the Democratic campaign themes of equal pay for women and raising the minimum wage.
I have full confidence that Bill Enyart wins his #IL12seat over Tea Party-aligned Illinois State Rep. Mike Bost. In #IL13, however, I surely hope Ann Callis wins over Rodney Davis.
#ILSen: Senator Dick Durbin should win by 10+ over Jim Oberweis .
Go Durbin, Enyart, Callis, and Quinn/Vallas!
H/T: CapitolFax
