Illinois Primary: A Preview of Key Midterm Races

Illinois voters will head to the polls on June 28 for primary races to pick their party’s candidates for 17 U.S. House seats, one U.S. Senate seat, and the state’s governor.

Among the House seats, five are in Democratic-leaning districts that are considered winnable by Republicans in a midterm year when the president’s party typically loses ground, according to the nonpartisan, independent Cook Political Report.

Nationwide, Republicans need to flip a net of five House seats to gain the majority.

13th District

Among the five Illinois seats, the 13th Congressional District was remapped by the Democratic-controlled state legislature last year to annex more urban centers across hundreds of miles in central Illinois in a long, narrow, snake-like shape.

The new district is more Democratic-leaning, prompting the Republican incumbent, Rodney Davis, to seek office in a nearby Republican-friendly district instead.

Nikki Budzinski, a former union organizer and former chief of staff of the Office of Management and Budget in the Biden administration, has emerged as the front-runner in the Democratic primary.

Her campaign has raised $1.7 million, far outraising any other candidate in the race, according to the early June campaign finance data published by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

In the Republican primary, Jesse Reising, founder of the Warrior-Scholar Project and a former federal prosecutor, and Regan Deering, a small-business owner and local philanthropist, raised the most money, at $457,751, and $373,730, respectively.

They are running on a similar Republican platform, that of pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and border security, according to conversations with both. They told The Epoch Times that the everyday problems under Democratic leadership—inflation, gas prices, and crime rates—offer them a prime opportunity to win a race against Budzinski, a Democratic machine insider.

17th District

Another district, the 17th, was also redrawn in a long crescent shape from the northwestern corner down

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