Illinois's 13th Senate district

Illinois’ 13th Senate district is one of 59 districts in the Illinois Senate. The seat stretches along the southern shoreline of Lake Michigan, from Chicago’s Magnificent Mile to the Indiana border. The seat is home to several Chicago landmarks, including Navy Pier, Millennium Park, Grant Park, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium, Soldier Field, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the University of Chicago. Neighborhoods located within its boundaries include Streeterville and the South Side communities of Kenwood, Hyde Park, and South Chicago.

The 13th district is home to 119,000 Black residents, who comprise a majority of the seat’s 217,000 total inhabitants. In recent years, this has made the seat a launching pad for several Black elected officials in Illinois. Notable examples include former President Barack Obama, who springboarded from this seat to the U.S. Senate in 2004, and state Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who represented the district from 2004 to 2019.

Democrats have held this seat with ease for more than six decades. In 2020, Joe Biden (who spent eight years as Obama’s vice president) carried it by an 89%-10% margin over Donald Trump.