Illinois and Ohio were both slated to hold primaries for downballot offices today, but after a chaotic and confusing flood of developments on Monday, polling places were closed by order of the state's health commissioner. Secretary of State Frank LaRose has said in-person voting will be rescheduled for June 2, but neither a court nor the legislature has signed off on the postponement.
We do know, however, that Illinois is definitely holding its primary today, though with turnout likely to be lower than usual and election administration under stress due to shortages of poll workers, we could be in for some unpredictable or delayed results.
Below you'll find our guide to the key races to watch in the Land of Lincoln. Note that candidates only need to win a plurality of the vote in order to capture their party’s nomination. When it’s available, we'll tell you about any recent polling that exists for each race, but if we don't mention any numbers, it means no surveys have been made public in the last month or so.
Our live coverage will begin at 7 PM ET Tuesday night at Daily Kos Elections. You can also follow us on Twitter for blow-by-blow updates. And you’ll want to bookmark our primary calendar, which includes the dates of the presidential and downballot primaries in all 50 states, as well as our separate calendar tracking key contests further down the ballot taking place nationwide this year.
Illinois
Polls close at 8 PM ET/7 PM local time.
IL-03 (D) (55-40 Clinton, 56-43 Obama): Conservative Rep. Dan Lipinski narrowly defeated businesswoman Marie Newman 51-49 in the 2018 primary for this Chicago-area seat, and Newman is back for a rematch. While Lipinski started the last campaign with a huge financial edge over Newman, both candidates have raised and spent comparable sums this time.
Complicating matters for Newman, though, is the presence of two other candidates: activist Rush Darwish and underfunded perennial candidate Charles Hughes. Darwish has been running ads focused on his own progressive record, so there’s a chance he could take enough votes from Newman to allow Lipinski to win with a plurality of the vote.
Newman once again has the support of EMILY’s List, which has spent $1 million on her behalf, and she picked up an endorsement in February from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Lightfoot, who is the city’s first gay mayor, memorably took Lipinski to task by declaring, “[I]f it were up to Dan Lipinski, I wouldn't be able to marry my wife.” Lipinski, though, has the support of much of the Chicago Democratic establishment, including powerful state House Speaker Mike Madigan, and many labor unions.
IL-07 (D) (87-9 Clinton, 87-12 Obama): Longtime Democratic Rep. Danny Davis faces three opponents in the primary for his Chicago-based seat. The incumbent’s best-funded opponent is attorney Kristine Schanbacher, who has been airing ads declaring that Davis is “one of the most absent members of Congress.” Also in the contest are activist Kina Collins and teacher Anthony Clark, who lost to Davis 74-26 last cycle. One detail to note: Davis, Collins, and Clark are black, while Schanbacher is the lone white candidate. About 50% of eligible voters in the district identify as African American while a third are white, 10% are Latino, and 5% are Asian American.
IL-14 (R) (49-45 Trump, 54-44 Romney): Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood flipped this historically red seat in the western Chicago exurbs in a 2018 upset, and now seven Republicans are vying to get it back.
The candidate with the most money is state Sen. Jim Oberweis, who has self-funded most of his campaign. Oberweis, though, has a terrible electoral track record, and he’s recently been hit with at least $910,000 in negative ads from a mysterious group called the Illinois Conservative PAC. Also in the contest are businessmen Ted Gradel, fellow state Sen. Sue Rezin, and former Trump administration official Catalina Lauf, plus three minor candidates. An early February poll for Oberweis gave him a wide 46-16 lead over Rezin, but we haven’t seen any other numbers in the ensuing month.
IL-15 (R) (71-25 Trump, 64-34 Romney): Veteran GOP Rep. John Shimkus is retiring from this safely red seat in the east-central and southeastern parts of the state, and four Republicans are competing to succeed him.
The only candidate who has raised much money is farmer Mary Miller, whose husband is a state representative. Vermilion County Treasurer Darren Duncan has also been self-funding and running TV ads, but because he failed to file the required pre-primary campaign finance report with the FEC, we can’t tell how much he’s deployed since the start of 2020. Also in the contest are Altamont School Board member Kerry Wolff and physician Charles Ellington, who have both raised and spent little.
Cook County State’s Attorney (D) (74-21 Clinton, 74-25 Obama): Kim Foxx’s victory in the 2016 Democratic primary gave the ascendant criminal justice reform movement one of its first high-profile wins, but she now faces a well-funded challenge for renomination in the nation’s second-largest county. Former prosecutor Bill Conway has raised about $11.5 million, with the vast majority of his funds coming from his billionaire father, investor William Conway. Also in the contest are former federal prosecutor Donna More and perennial candidate Bob Fioretti, who is a former Chicago alderman.
Conway has focused his campaign on Foxx’s handling of the high-profile 2019 case involving actor Jesse Smollett. A grand jury initially indicted Smollett after he was accused of faking a racist and homophobic attack on himself, but Foxx’s office soon dropped the charges. The story attracted renewed attention in February after a grand jury indicted Smollett again, and Conway has been running commercials attacking Foxx’s handling of the situation.
Foxx, who has endorsements from Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, has focused her campaign on her work reforming the state’s attorney office. The incumbent has raised $3.5 million, and philanthropist George Soros has contributed $2 million to a pro-Foxx group. A mid-February Conway poll from ALG Research gave Foxx just a 28-26 edge, but an early March Foxx internal from GBAO had her ahead 39-28, with 18% undecided. A March survey taken by the Republican pollster Ogden & Fry for a local GOP group also had Foxx up, by a similar 33-20 margin, though a much larger 38% of voters hadn't yet made up their minds.