Virtually all of the different battles simmering inside the Democratic Party this year are on display in Tuesday’s primaries in Illinois, where retirements by key House Democrats and the state’s senior senator opened new theaters for intraparty hostilities.
Deep disagreements over issues like immigration and Israel policy, tactical battles over how best to take on the Trump administration, questions about age and whether to empower a new generation of leaders, and the enduring tug of war between progressives and moderates for influence in the party are all at the forefront as Illinois Democrats weigh potential successors for retiring Sen. Dick Durbin and a quartet of Chicago-area House members leaving their districts.
Meanwhile, an onslaught of tens of millions of dollars in outside spending is shaping those contests, too. Groups tied to the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industries are involved, as are several that have successfully leveraged a gap in campaign finance rules to keep their funders anonymous until after the primary.
Here’s what defined the campaigns and what to watch as the results come in Tuesday night, from the stakes in the Senate race to the personalities down the ballot.
A test for JB Pritzker
The outcome of the marquee Senate contest won’t just elevate a new Democratic leader in the state. It may also be a measure of Gov. JB Pritzker’s political muscle as he runs for a third term this year — and as he weighs a presidential bid in 2028.
Just after Durbin announced he would retire last year, Pritzker quickly put his support behind his lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton. Sen. Tammy Duckworth soon followed.
That decision pitted the Pritzker machine against Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi — who had already amassed millions in fundraising and launched an early ad campaign — and resurrected a rift between Pritzker and Rep. Robin Kelly, the third major Democratic candidate vying to replace Durbin.
Since he entered the political fray as a first-time candidate in 2018, Pritzker has wrested control of Illinois’ Democratic infrastructure from longtime state House speaker (and now convicted felon) Michael Madigan and built a wide-reaching political operation of his own. Pritzker and Kelly butted heads in the past, after Pritzker won a battle to oust her as state party chair.
Beyond that, Pritzker, a billionaire, has poured money into a super PAC backing Stratton, who lagged Krishnamoorthi in fundraising. The group, Illinois Future Fund, has spent $14.8 million on ads supporting Stratton and attacking Krishnamoorthi, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Among the group’s ads was a spot touting Pritzker’s endorsement of Stratton, featuring video of Pritzker praising her.
As Pritzker and Stratton’s allies tried to boost her campaign, Stratton also faces attacks from a super PAC funded by crypto executives and companies. Fairshake has spent $9.4 million on ads attacking Stratton in the race.
Geoff Vetter, a spokesperson for Fairshake, said in a statement that the group doesn’t comment on “individual races or strategic decisions” but added, “Fairshake supports pro-crypto candidates and opposes anti-crypto politicians.”
There could be a link involving measures Pritzker signed into state law last year that established new crypto regulations. Stratton has also been endorsed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has pushed for more regulation of the crypto industry.
Will Krishnamoorthi’s money matter?
The Senate primary race will also put Krishnamoorthi’s massive campaign spending to the test. His campaign has spent nearly $29 million on ads, according to AdImpact.
Stratton’s campaign, meanwhile, has spent $1.3 million on ads, while Kelly’s campaign has spent $1.1 million.
The Pritzker-funded super PAC has bolstered Stratton, but it’s not clear whether the early spending by Krishnamoorthi’s campaign, which first hit the airwaves in July, helped establish an insurmountable lead.
Meanwhile, the content of the campaigns’ ads also tells a story about where the Democratic Party is right now, with all three Senate candidates pitching themselves as fighters against President Donald Trump. Krishnamoorthi says in his closing TV ad that he is “the only one with a real plan to hold Trump accountable.” Stratton’s latest TV ad likens Trump to a dictator, with her tossing “Trump’s playbook” into a fire and saying, “Washington won’t stop him.” Kelly didn’t mention Trump in her final TV ad, but she touted her plans to address high costs, saying, “It’s time to focus on what really matters: You.”
Eight Republicans are also on the primary ballot, but Democrats are expected to hold on to the Senate seat in the traditionally Democratic state.
Anti-ICE messaging
The Democratic Senate candidates have also diverged over how to approach Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with anti-ICE messaging dominating recent ads in the race and other party primaries around the country. Tuesday’s results could send a signal about which proposal resonated most with Democratic voters.
Months of aggressive immigration operations wreaked havoc in and around Chicago’s neighborhoods and its suburbs last year, when the Trump administration surged federal agents in an effort known as Operation Midway Blitz. Immigration officers shot two people — one fatally — and drew hundreds of complaints that culminated in a federal court clash over allegations of constitutional rights violations involving then-Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino. In the operation, roughly 1,600 people were arrested. All three candidates said in interviews that they recognized their community was still reeling.
While polling shows Democrats broadly want to overhaul ICE in the wake of Trump’s mass deportation efforts and after federal immigration agents shot and killed two people in Minnesota early this year, the party is divided over exactly how to do it, as are its candidates in Illinois.
Stratton has called to completely abolish ICE, embracing a mantra that some Democrats worry Republicans could weaponize. Krishnamoorthi says he wants to “abolish Trump’s ICE,” calling for certain reforms but noting that immigration enforcement is going to continue. And Kelly has said she wants to “dismantle” ICE and the Department of Homeland Security broadly.
A secret-money bid to swing the House primaries
It’s not unusual for outside money to pour into primaries in both parties, particularly in open seats in safe districts, where primary winners could hold congressional seats for decades. What’s unusual this year in Illinois is the presence of two groups that have spent more than $14 million in three Chicagoland districts without any public accounting of who is funding them or why.
The two main groups — Affordable Chicago Now and Elect Chicago Women — popped up in the final six weeks before the primary and have boosted Cook County Board of Commissioners member Donna Miller in the 2nd Congressional District, former Rep. Melissa Bean in the 8th District and state Rep. Laura Fine in the 9th District.
Another similarly opaque group, the Chicago Progressive Partnership, has spent more than $1 million in the 9th District, ostensibly boosting local school board official Bushra Amiwala. But it has also spent more than $1 million to attack another progressive in that race, former journalist Kat Abughazaleh, and $600,000 more against a progressive in the 8th District, tech consultant Junaid Ahmed. That has raised questions about whether the group is, in fact, trying to split the progressive vote.
Because of when those groups launched, they won’t need to reveal their financial backers to the Federal Election Commission until days after the primary. Opponents have blamed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for the spending. Amiwala, for example, blasted the Chicago Progressive Partnership over the weekend in a statement accusing AIPAC of “using her good name to do toxic work.” There is still no direct proof about the groups’ provenance.
By the end of Tuesday night, it will be clear whether those secret groups got what they paid for — or whether they provoked backlash with tactics that scrambled the outcome.
That’s particularly worth watching in the 9th District, where Elect Chicago Women’s spending has boosted Fine, the most prominent establishment contender in the race, and attacked Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, a progressive backed by the district’s retiring representative. Meanwhile, Abughazaleh, another high-profile progressive, could take advantage.
Bean isn’t alone in attempting a comeback. Jesse Jackson Jr. is asking voters to give him another shot in the 2nd District after he resigned from Congress in 2012 and pleaded guilty in 2013 to misusing campaign funds. He isn’t being backed by one of the secret money groups, but he has gotten a boost from a super PAC aligned with the AI company OpenAI.
The politics of Israel
Whether or not pro-Israel groups are responsible for the secret spending, the campaigns for those House seats have been part of a massive fight over Israel playing out in the Democratic Party. Tuesday’s results will have significant implications for both the makeup of the Democratic caucus and the running battle taking place over Israel from primary date to primary date this year.
Democratic Majority for Israel is backing candidates in two districts: Miller in the 2nd and Bean in the 8th. United Democracy Project, a super PAC aligned with AIPAC, has spent millions to boost Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin in the 7th District. And in the 9th, Fine, who is Jewish, has emerged as the race’s most vocal defender of U.S. support for Israel.
Progressives in those races — including Biss and Abughazaleh in the 9th District, Ahmed in the 8th, numerous candidates in the extremely crowded 7th and Robert Peters in the 2nd — have delivered varying degrees of criticism of Israel’s handling of the war against Hamas in Gaza. And they’ve decried AIPAC’s alleged involvement in their races as they aim to galvanize the left.
