On March 17, Voters in Illinois headed to the polls to decide which candidates would appear on the ballot in the November 2026 midterm elections. As election night wore on in one the most hotly contested batch of primary elections in the state’s recent history, one thing became clear: no single political force would dominate the narrative.
Nearly every elected office was on the ballot in March, including primaries for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Illinois governor, State House and State Senate and a host of other local and statewide races.
There were two big-ticket statewide elections on election day: for U.S. Senate and for Illinois governor. The governor races were largely uncompetitive — incumbent Democrat JB Pritzker won on an uncontested ballot, while 2022 Republican nominee Darren Bailey comfortably secured a second shot at Pritzker’s seat thanks to intense support outside of Chicago and its suburbs. Pritzker will be a heavy favorite in November.
The Senate races, on the other hand, were more fierce. While former state GOP Chairman Don Tracy won the Republican Primary with a spattering of support across Illinois, most of the attention was towards the Democratic nomination, which would, in all likelihood, decide who would replace 30-year incumbent Dick Durbin.
Three competitors had set themselves ahead of the rest: Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, Rep, Robin Kelly and Lieutenant Governor Julianna Stratton. Khrishnamoorthi held a major fundraising and ad spending advantage throughout the campaign; he represented the most moderate option among the three. As election day neared, it became clear that Kelly was unlikely to win, and instead would serve as a potential spoiler for Stratton, with both candidates being ideological progressives.
Stratton had received Pritzker’s endorsement at the beginning of the Senate campaign, and he bankrolled most of her late-charging campaign (though she remained at a significant fundraising disadvantage to Krishnamoorthi). Ultimately, her late push ended up being more than enough, as strong core support in Chicago and an overperformance in the Chicago suburbs and downstate secured her a seven point victory over Krishnamoorthi.
With most downstate primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives being uncompetitive, focus and millions in ad spending turned towards races in Chicagoland. With most races in the region being strongly Democratic, the party’s primaries garnered extra attention; the amount of open races thanks to a flurry of incumbent retirements only intensified the competition. Different ideological factions and PACs all weighed in on the Democratic ballot, with many races being contested between progressives and candidates backed by pro-AI, pro-Israel and pro-cryptocurrency Super PACs.
In Illinois’ 2nd District, moderate Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller defeated Jesse Jackson Jr. (attempting a political comeback after a prison sentence took him out of Congress in 2012). In the 5th, incumbent Mike Quigley comfortably blocked challengers to his left to secure the nomination. In the hotly contested race in Illinois’ 7th, state legislator La Shawn K. Ford won with just 24% of the popular vote, winning off the back of an endorsement from retiring Rep. Danny Davis.
In Illinois’ 8th Congressional District, former Rep. Melissa Bean won the race to replace Krishnamoorthi; her campaign, which was backed by AIPAC and AI-focused PACs, defeated that of progressive Junaid Ahmed.
Lastly, the race in the 9th District represented a three-way ideological battle between progressive Evanston mayor Daniel Biss, moderate state senator Laura Fine and democratic socialist researcher Kat Abughazaleh; 12 other candidates also appeared on the ballot. Ultimately, Biss won with under 30% of the vote, leveraging his position between Abughazhaleh and Fine ideologically to create broad appeal in the geographically and politically diverse district.
Though a specific ideological faction can usually claim victory on primary night, Illinois’ 2026 primaries could only be described as a mixed bag, at least for Democrats — Republican candidates that aligned themselves closer to Trump consistently performed better in their races. Moderates — including many backed by AIPAC, which spent over $20m on Illinois races according to POLITICO — scored major victories in U.S. House races, though progressives claimed the biggest win of the evening (Stratton’s) and performed better downballot in state legislative and local elections (including the renomination of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle). At a time when the Democratic Party is searching for an identity ahead of a favorable midterm election, the results in Illinois may only serve to provide more questions than answers.