Illinois held primary elections this week that resulted in significant turnover in the state’s congressional delegation, with Democrats selecting five new nominees for open House seats widely expected to remain in Democratic control in the general election later this year.
The primary season was marked by exceptional financial activity, with approximately $70 million in independent expenditures and $54 million in direct campaign spending across five competitive races for open Senate and House positions. This spending volume is atypical for Illinois, which historically has been characterized by traditional machine politics rather than wide-open electoral contests. The unusual spending levels were driven by an exceptionally high number of legislative retirements, including U.S. Senator Dick Durbin’s announcement last year that he would not seek another term. Durbin’s decision prompted two House members to mount Senate campaigns, creating a cascading effect that left more than one-quarter of the state’s House seats open—a situation not seen in at least seven decades.
The Senate Democratic primary alone generated over $34 million in independent expenditures, a spending level that exceeded all but nine Senate general election campaigns from 2024, according to nonpartisan spending tracker OpenSecrets. Illinois’s expensive Chicago media market enabled outside groups to deploy substantial resources efficiently. Ten political action committees each reported at least $1 million in independent expenditures across the five races, with Illinois Future PAC and the cryptocurrency-backed Fairshake each exceeding $10 million in spending.
In four of the five contested House primaries, outside groups spent more money than the candidates themselves—a phenomenon that OpenSecrets noted occurred in only 49 of approximately 470 federal races during the 2024 general election. Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton, the Senate primary winner, received more than $16 million in outside support compared to roughly $11 million in opposition, while reporting just under $2.8 million in direct campaign spending. Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who trailed Stratton by approximately 7 percentage points with nearly all votes counted, spent nearly $24 million from his campaign account while facing more than $4 million in outside opposition.
Crypto-backed and artificial intelligence-backed PACs were notably active across four Illinois races, as was the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which spent millions advocating for increased U.S. support for Israel. Several large-spending groups, including Affordable Chicago Now, Elect Chicago Women, and Chicago Progressive Partnership, have not yet disclosed their donors, meaning the ultimate sources of significant portions of this spending will remain unknown until PAC filing deadlines pass later this month.
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