As 16 candidates battle for Illinois’ first open U.S. Senate seat in a decade, $37.9 million was funneled into the campaign war chests last year.
The campaign follows the retirement of U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-Ill.) after a 44-year career in Congress, including 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and 30 years in the U.S. Senate. Durbin has also served as the Senate Democratic Whip since 2005.
Ten Democratic and six Republican candidates will appear on the March 17 primary election ballot. Three additional independent candidates are slated to appear on the general election ballot.
According to the Federal Election Commission’s year-end reports, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Schaumburg) pulled ahead in fundraising, making up 75% of the total fundraising with nearly $28.5 million in total campaign funds. The next two highest fundraisers are Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Matteson), who both fell over $20 million short of Krishnamoorthi.
Although he entered the race after Kelly and Stratton, Krishnamoorthi came into the race with $19.4 million. He has since raised millions, largely through individual contributions. He is also one of two Democratic candidates to receive party committee contributions — donations from organizations affiliated with a political party and registered with the FEC.
Krishnamoorthi has faced criticism for previously accepting contributions from an official from Palantir, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractor, according to reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times.
He told the Daily last week he donated those contributions to immigrant rights organizations, including Centro Romero and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. These donations are not reported in his FEC year-end spending filings.
Stratton trailed behind Krishnamoorthi with $3.2 million dollars in funding. Contrary to Kelly and Krishnamoorthi, she did not accept any corporate PAC contributions, in accordance with an earlier campaign pledge.
Stratton was the first Democrat to announce her bid for Durbin’s seat but entered the race with no cash on hand.
While most of her funding is from individual contributions, Stratton received money from other political action committees, including $3,500 from the Level Up PAC, a group she founded last January.
According to reporting from the Sun-Times on Saturday, Governor JB Pritzker donated $5 million to Illinois Future PAC, which funded pro-Stratton ads in December.
Kelly entered the race soon after Stratton and has raised $2.9 million in total, having entered the race with $2 million. She has since spent $1.3 million and will continue to campaign with $1.6 million in cash on hand according to year-end FEC filings.
Meanwhile, former Illinois Republican Party chair Don Tracy is leading the Republican candidates in fundraising with $2.1 million, $2 million of which came from loans.
Democrat Steve Botsford self-funded a majority of his nearly $360,00 last year and enters 2026 with about $128,000. Democrat Kevin Ryan raised a majority of his $84,000 from individual contributions and now has $11,500 in cash on hand. Republican Jeannie Evans largely funded her own campaign of nearly $511,000 and will start this year with nearly $299,000.
The remaining candidates do not have more than $10,000 in cash on hand at the start of 2026.
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