CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois voters are deciding primaries Tuesday for six open U.S. House and Senate seats that will spur a new generation of leadership in the state’s heavily Democratic congressional delegation.
The retirement of longtime Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, has triggered a competitive campaign, drawing as candidates two sitting House members and the lieutenant governor, among others. Sharp elbows and furious fundraising have marked the race, which also is a test of the influence of Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire whose name is floated as a 2028 presidential contender.
A spate of House retirements has led to open seats with crowded contests across the Chicago area. The stakes are high, with most primary winners in the Democratic stronghold expected to win in November.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee and PACs supporting the cryptocurrency and AI industries also have spent big on several of the contests.
Here’s a look at the key races:
Ten Democrats and six Republicans are running after Durbin, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, announced his retirement after five terms.
Three top Democrats have emerged: Chicago-area U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton.
Krishnamoorthi has dominated fundraising and the airwaves and was the first on television with ads in July. He started 2026 with over $15 million on hand after spending more than $6 million and raising more than $3.5 million in the final three months of last year, according to campaign finance records.
By comparison, Stratton started the year with $1 million after raising about the same amount and spending just under $1 million in the last three months of 2025. But last month Pritzker put $5 million in a super PAC largely aimed at helping get her elected.
She campaigned on Pritzker's endorsement and lit into Krishnamoorthi at debates, particularly on the five-term Democrat's voting record and donations from a contractor tied to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“That is not the example of somebody who’s going to stand up to Donald Trump and fight for all of our communities,” Stratton said during a debate in January. “I want to abolish ICE.”
Krishnamoorthi, who has called to dismantle the agency, said he donated the money to immigrant rights groups. He argued that Stratton zeroed in on him because she “didn’t have any policy ideas. She had to attack.”
Meanwhile Kelly has taken issue with Pritzker’s involvement, arguing that a sitting governor should not interfere.
Candidates have touted ties to iconic Chicagoans including President Barack Obama and the late Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died last month. However, an endorsement touted posthumously by Stratton caused a snag as Jackson's family withdrew it Monday, saying the draft wasn't meant for public release.
Election officials hope to see busy polls after turnout in the 2024 primary was 19%, the lowest in more than five decades.
Roosevelt Jones, 67, said his Social Security and public safety were at the forefront as he cast an early ballot for Stratton in Chicago recently.
“She seems to be the one to take care of things,” he said.
In the Republican primary, six candidates are on the ballot including Don Tracy, former Illinois Republican Party chairman, and attorney Jeannie Evans. Illinois last had a Republican in the Senate a decade ago, when Mark Kirk was defeated by current Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth.
Dozens of candidates are running for five open seats in the Chicago area where funding from groups supporting Israel and the cryptocurrency industry have played an outsized role.
Ten Democrats and one Republican are running in Kelly’s district, the 2nd, which spans parts of the South Side and suburbs and dips into the central Illinois farmlands. Among the Democrats are former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., son of the late civil rights leader, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller and state Sen. Robert Peters.
The open seat in Krishnamoorthi's suburban 8th District has attracted eight Democratic candidates including former U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean and Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison.
Two other House members are retiring after long careers.
The 7th District of Rep. Danny Davis, who was first elected in 1996, covers parts of downtown, the West Side and suburbs. Democratic front-runners to replace him include state Rep. La Shawn Ford, City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, developer Jason Friedman and Kina Collins, a community organizer. Two Republicans are running.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky is also retiring, after 14 terms, and the primary field for her 9th District seat is the most crowded. Among the 15 Democratic candidates are Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, digital creator Kat Abughazaleh and state Sen. Laura Fine. Four Republicans are running.
Another open seat is that of Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who announced he would not seek reelection citing health reasons. The primary is uncontested after Garcia quietly schemed to place his chief of staff, Patty Garcia, who is not related to the congressman, on the ballot before a critical deadline. The move assured that no other Democrat would have time to circulate petitions. Then he withdrew.
Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune who is unopposed in his primary, is the first governor to seek a third term since the 1980s.
One of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics, Pritzker used a campaign ad this month to highlight efforts to oppose the aggressive federal immigration crackdown in Chicago last year.
“I will always stand up for the law and the constitution,” he said. “Because that’s what we do in the state of Illinois.”
Pritzker has also made digs at Republican candidate Darren Bailey, a former state senator whom he handily defeated in 2022.
Bailey, among four Republicans vying for the nomination, says he is doing things differently. For one, he focused more on Chicago voters by choosing running mate Aaron Del Mar, who leads the Republican Party in Cook County.
Bailey has criticized Pritzker’s leadership, including blaming him for rising costs.
“He’s just another billionaire who has never once felt the pain he’s inflicted,” he said.
Also in the Republican primary are Ted Dabrowski, a real estate developer; Rick Heidner, a video gambling magnate; and DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick.
Patty García speaks during a news conference to announce her candidacy for the fourth district congressional race, Nov. 12, 2025, in Cicero, Ill. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
Through lectures, scoldings and outright threats, President Donald Trump and his aides are ratcheting up the pressure on journalists to cover the war in the Middle East the way the administration wants.
The president has fumed on social media about stories he doesn't like and berated a reporter on Air Force One. The government's top media regulator has warned that broadcasters risk losing their licenses if they don't stay away from “fake news.” Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have both questioned the patriotism of news outlets because of their reporting.
Trump has complained about war coverage in both specific and general ways. In a social media post, he said news reports exaggerated the damage to planes that were attacked by Iran at an airport in Saudi Arabia. He attacked “Corrupt Media Outlets” for falling for AI-generated false reports created by Iran and said the media “hates to report” how well the U.S. military has performed.
All presidential administrations tangle with the press; it's the natural byproduct of journalists' watchdog roles in a democratic society. But the incidents of the past few days speak to a hostility toward the very idea of being questioned — in a way that, some say, scratches up against the First Amendment itself.
Meeting with reporters on Air Force One while returning to the White House from Florida late Sunday, the president objected to a question from ABC News' Mariam Khan about a fundraising message that used a photo taken at last week's dignified transfer ceremony of the remains of U.S. service members.
Khan was working as the pool reporter on the plane, but when she told Trump she was with ABC, he said: “I think it's maybe the most corrupt news organization on the planet. I think they're terrible."
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr cited Trump's Truth Social message about the planes struck in Saudi Arabia in warning news outlets to be careful about what they report.
“Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up,” Carr wrote on X over the weekend. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their license if they do not.”
Decades of court decisions have generally sided with the press over government attempts to regulate the content it produces. But Carr said making changes is in the best interest of legacy media outlets because so many people don't trust them.
His ability to make changes, however, is limited.
The FCC does not regulate networks like CBS, NBC and ABC — although it does have the authority to reject the licenses of individual affiliates of those networks when they come up for renewal. Cable news networks CNN, Fox News Channel and MS NOW are not under the FCC's purview. The Trump message that Carr retweeted mentioned only The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal specifically, and the FCC has no authority over newspapers.
Punishing a television affiliate for war coverage that Carr objects to is likely to run afoul of the law, noted First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams in an interview Monday.
“The broadcast media is always at risk of a sort that newspapers are not. But at its core, they are protected by the First Amendment,” Abrams said, “and these statements by the chairman seem to me are directly threatening First Amendment interests and First Amendment principles.”
Abrams said he'd argue that robust war reporting is just the sort of public interest work that television stations should be doing to justify their licenses.
Intimidation may be Carr's motive. And that doesn't have to mean intimidating a news outlet to pull its punches, said Barbara Starr, a former CNN Pentagon correspondent. “The risk is the climate they create,” she said. “Are people going to be afraid to talk to reporters? Some of them will be, and that's a serious matter.”
Trump said on social media that he was thrilled to see Carr looking at the licenses of the “highly corrupt and highly unpatriotic ‘News’ organizations." Their efforts were endorsed Monday by hosts of the influential “Fox & Friends” morning show on Fox News Channel.
“The president has said enough with this coverage, from other networks that are not telling you the truth, that are so negative about what is going on,” said Fox's Ainsley Earhardt, without specifying the outlets she was referring to. “This is a pro-America fight, and every network needs to get on board with that.”
Hegseth, in his most recent Pentagon war briefing, specifically attacked CNN. Under his administration, most legacy news outlets have been thrown out of their regular spaces in the Pentagon press room because they would not agree to his new rules that he said restricted their work. Some reporters from exiled outlets are allowed back for briefings, although Hegseth seldom takes their questions. Without an explanation, still photographers have been banned from briefings.
Hegseth said a CNN story about the administration being unprepared for Iranian attacks on the world's oil supply was ridiculous. He offered his own edits of headlines that a “patriotic press” should use onscreen.
“The sooner that David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” Hegseth said, in reference to the Paramount Global chief, whose company is expected to take over ownership of CNN. The administration is hoping that will result in more Trump-friendly coverage.
Mark Thompson, CNN's chief executive, said the network stands behind its work. “Politicians have an obvious motive for claiming that journalism which raises questions about their decisions is false," he said. "At CNN, our only interest is telling the truth to our audiences in the U.S. and around the world, and no amount of political insults and threats is going to change that.”
Starr, now retired from Pentagon reporting, said she sees journalists consistently breaking stories despite the limited access and hostility toward their work under the current administration.
“That has always been the case,” she said. “The level of intimidation has definitely ramped up and, in response to that, the commitment to the First Amendment and quality journalism has ramped up even further.”
David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One, Sunday, March 15, 2026, en route from West Palm Beach, Fla. to Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens as President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while traveling aboard Air Force One en route from Dover Air Force Base, Del., to Miami, Saturday, March 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
