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.

Prior to the election, incumbent senator Mark Kirk (R) was considered to be the most vulnerable senator among those seeking re-election in 2016 due to Illinois's heavy Democratic partisan balance; news networks and analysts expected a Democratic pickup.

Party primary elections were held on March 15, 2016. Kirk lost re-election to a second full term to Tammy Duckworth, the U.S. representative from Illinois's 8th congressional district and a decorated combat veteran of the Iraq War. Duckworth became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois since fellow Democrat Carol Moseley Braun in 1992. Despite his loss, Kirk outperformed Trump in the concurrent presidential election by around 2 percent.

Election information
The primaries and general elections coincided with those for United States President and House, 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 early, 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.

Nominee

 * Mark Kirk, incumbent U.S. Senator

Eliminated in primary

 * James Marter, businessman

Removed from ballot

 * Elizabeth Pahlke, independent candidate for IL-02 in 2013

Withdrawn

 * Ron Wallace, investment advisor, conservative activist and economics professor

Declined

 * William J. Kelly, television producer, nominee for IL-01 in 1994, candidate for Illinois Comptroller in 2010 and candidate for Mayor of Chicago in 2015
 * Bobby Schilling, former U.S. Representative
 * Joe Walsh, conservative radio talk show host and former U.S. Representative

Nominee

 * Tammy Duckworth, U.S. Representative

Eliminated in primary

 * Napoleon Harris, state senator and candidate for Illinois's 2nd congressional district in 2013
 * Andrea Zopp, former president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League and former Chicago Board of Education member

Withdrawn

 * Tio Hardiman, former director of CeaseFire and candidate for governor in 2014 (ran for IL-01, then withdrew to run for Cook County Clerk of Court  )
 * Robert Marshall, radiologist and perennial candidate (running for IL-06)

Declined

 * Daniel Biss, state senator (running for state comptroller)
 * Richard Boykin, Cook County Commissioner
 * Cheri Bustos, U.S. Representative
 * Jacqueline Y. Collins, state senator
 * Tom Dart, Sheriff of Cook County
 * Bill Foster, U.S. Representative
 * Mike Frerichs, Illinois Treasurer
 * Daniel Hynes, former Illinois Comptroller, candidate for U.S. Senate in 2004 and candidate for governor of Illinois in 2010
 * Robin Kelly, U.S. Representative
 * Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General
 * Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States
 * Mike Quigley, U.S. Representative
 * Pat Quinn, former governor of Illinois
 * Kwame Raoul, state senator
 * Jan Schakowsky, U.S. Representative
 * Sheila Simon, former lieutenant governor of Illinois and nominee for Illinois Comptroller in 2014

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 were likely to receive ballot access after a review of their petitions.

Constitution Party (C) (write in)

 * Chad Koppie, farmer and vice president of Kane County Regional Board of School Trustees

Libertarian Party (L)

 * Kent McMillen

Green Party (G)

 * Scott Summers, attorney and former member of the McHenry County College Board of Trustees

Independent (I)

 * Eric M. Conklin, law enforcement officer

General election

 * Tammy Duckworth (D), U.S. Representative
 * Mark Kirk (R), incumbent U.S. Senator
 * Chad Koppie (C) (write-in)
 * Kenton McMillen (L)
 * Scott Summers (G)

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. Kirk also had a mostly liberal voting record in the Senate, favoring gay marriage, an assault weapons ban, and he had voted against defunding and repealing portions of Obamacare in 2015. 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.

Polling

 * with Andrea Zopp


 * with Lisa Madigan


 * with Michelle Obama


 * with Pat Quinn

Results
The result was a landslide victory for Tammy Duckworth. Pre-election polling 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, but it was nowhere near enough to offset his weakness in the Chicago metropolitan area. The Chicago 'collar counties' — among them Kirk's home county of Lake County — previously voted for Kirk, but easily flipped to 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.

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * DeKalb (largest city: DeKalb)
 * DuPage (largest city: Aurora)
 * Gallatin (largest city: Shawneetown)
 * Kane (largest city: Aurora)
 * Lake (largest city: Waukegan)
 * McDonough (largest city: Macomb)
 * Will (largest city: Joliet)
 * Calhoun (largest village: Hardin)
 * Madison (largest city: Granite City)
 * Knox (largest city: Galesburg)
 * Champaign (largest city: Champaign)
 * Rock Island (largest city: Moline)

By congressional district
Duckworth won 12 of the 18 districts, including one that elected a Republican.