2016 United States Senate election in Illinois


The 2016 United States Senate election in Illinois was held on November 8, 2016, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the State of Illinois, concurrently with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Party primary elections in Illinois were held March 15, 2016. Incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Mark Kirk ran for re-election to a second full term, but was defeated by Democratic nominee Tammy Duckworth, the U.S. representative from Illinois's 8th congressional district and a decorated combat veteran of the Iraq War.

Election information

The primaries and general elections coincided with those for United States President and congress, as well as those for state offices.

Background

In 2010, Republican Mark Kirk was elected to the Senate for Illinois, defeating Democratic nominee Alexi Giannoulias by 59,220 votes out of more than 3.7 million votes cast.
Kirk suffered a severe stroke in January 2012 that kept him away from the Senate until January 2013. In June 2013 he confirmed that he was "planning" to run for re-election, but there was speculation that he might retire, particularly in the wake of the departure of several of his senior staff. Republican Bruce Rauner was elected Governor in 2014, and a possible scenario was that Kirk would resign, allowing Rauner to appoint another Republican as the replacement. Potential replacements included U.S. Representatives Bob Dold, Adam Kinzinger, Aaron Schock, and Peter Roskam, State Senators Jason Barickman and Christine Radogno, hedge fund manager and founder and CEO of Citadel LLC Kenneth C. Griffin, and businesswoman Beth Christie. In November 2014, Kirk reiterated that he was going to run for re-election.
Kirk was identified by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico, The Huffington Post, Slate and Roll Call as one of the most vulnerable Republican senators up for re-election in 2016.

Turnout

For the primary election, turnout was 41.94%, with 3,215,334 votes cast. For the general election, turnout was 68.39%, with 5,491,878 votes cast.

Democratic primary

Candidates

Declared

Polling

Results

Republican primary

Candidates

Declared

Polling

Results

Third party candidates

On July 6, the Green Party candidate and the Libertarian Party candidate were announced as having made the ballot for November after no objections were filed against their petitions. However, objections against two others were filed, namely: the Constitution Party candidate Chad Koppie, due to his name being on a petition slate with Constitution Party presidential candidate Darrell Castle who turned in fewer than the required petitions needed, and against Independent candidate Eric Conklin. Neither Koppie nor Conklin are likely to receive ballot access after a review of their petitions.

Constitution Party (C) (Write in)

Campaign

Kirk had multiple factors working against him, as no Republican had won an Illinois US Senate race during a presidential election year since 1972, and he had made a number of gaffes during the campaign. He had exaggerated his Iraq War record on his campaign website, and during a debate, Kirk made a racially charged remark about Duckworth's familial military background. Additionally, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was unpopular in Chicago and its suburbs, and Kirk refused to endorse or vote for him, instead writing in former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Due to these factors, Kirk alienated the Democratic, Independent, and Republican voters whom he had previously won over in his 2010 campaign. Unusually, the normally Republican-leaning editorial board of the Chicago Tribune endorsed Duckworth, as they believed that the health problems that Kirk had suffered as a result of his stroke made him a less effective Senator. This election had been cited as historic as both major party nominees had physical disabilities.

Endorsements

Predictions

Polling


Hypothetical polling		-------

;with Andrea Zopp

Results

Democratic U.S. Representative Tammy Duckworth easily defeated the Republican incumbent senator Mark Kirk. Polls showed Kirk would be easily defeated by Duckworth, and the polls were proven right when Duckworth was declared the winner quickly after polls closed in Illinois. Duckworth performed extremely well in the heavily populated and strongly Democratic Cook County, home of Chicago. Duckworth also did well in Champaign, East St. Louis and Carbondale. Kirk did do well in rural parts of the state. The Chicago 'collar counties' — among them Kirk's home county of Lake County — failed to deliver for the incumbent, and they easily went for Duckworth. Duckworth was sworn in at 12:00 P.M. EST on January 3, 2017.
The Libertarian and Green candidates polled well, winning three and two percent of the vote respectively.
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