Congressbae Delia Ramirez (GS 22), who has been one of the most ardent supporters of Palestine in Congress during her time in Washington. We love Delia and will continue to support her as long as she holds this line, which we hope will be as long as necessary.

Longer Note: We No Longer Cover Congress or Senate in November

Dear reader, as we said in 2024, and in basically every Congressional coverage this Spring, we are tired. Neither Raeghn nor Steph believe in the US Federal Government, and we know that y’all don’t come to this Guide for advice on your vote for Congress in General elections. The reasons for that are myriad, but most are essentially comprised of the following components:

1. This is Cook County. The Democrat is going to win. 

2. You do not care about Federal offices as much anymore, and really want to know The Dish on local races

3. Your Congressperson has an unacceptable stance on Palestine and/or genocide. 

Longtime readers of the Guide know by now that we take an extremely firm line when covering races for Federal office, and absolutely refuse to countenance support for candidates that cannot stick up for Palestinian human rights in a way that we consider to be sufficient. We are both hard-line single-issue-entry voters on Palestine in Federal elections, and in 2024 enacted a litmus test that promised to not endorse a Federal candidate in any election unless they showed substantial support for the Palestinian people and their liberation struggle as they define it. Unsurprisingly, many of our esteemed Congresspeople in Illinois have failed to rise to the occasion, whether out of bloodlust, cowardice, apathy, or some combination of the three. This is far from unexpected, as such fecklessness and foibles abound in most Congressional delegations, but it is also depressing to cover. 

Simply put, dear reader, dunking on Republicans is no fun if the Democrat on the ballot has blood on their hands. As such, we made the exhausted decision in 2024 to refrain from covering Congress during the General Election, and we’re holding firm on that boundary this year. According to those of y’all who responded to Instagram polls in April of that year, only 2% of Girl, I Guess readers use the Guide for Congressional elections, so we’re confident in this decision. We also had to deal with a huge amount of horrible behavior from rabid supporters of assorted Congressional candidates in the Primary, so much so that we nearly considered ceasing the production of this Guide altogether, rather than continue to risk our sanity and wellbeing because some (mostly white, universally whiny) people got their fee-fees hurt that we didn’t support their favorite ballot inhabitant. We both took a few months and got over it, but that was a close call and we have no desire to reprise that experience before it’s absolutely necessary.

Additionally, with the departure of actually-worthy-of-being-discussed challengers Byron Sigcho-Lopez and Myra Macias from the 4th Congressional District ballot, we will not spare brain cells in considering serious coverage of that District’s race. Patty Garcia is the clear progressive on the ballot, is probably going to win easily, and actually has quite good stances on Palestine. I’m heartened to see that Patty will be continuing Chuy’s legacy of Congressional progressivism, and stalwart solidarity with Palestine. Unfortunately as of this writing, her platform doesn’t include the three required components of our litmus test, and as such, we cannot endorse her. If that changes before now and the election, we’ll happily give Patty Garcia a full endorsement.

All of that being said, we will continue to give out endorsements to Congressional candidates that meet our litmus test, and therefore deserve our support year-round. This year, those endorsements are going to:

Congressbae Delia Ramirez (GS 22), who has been one of the most ardent supporters of Palestine in Congress during her time in Washington. We love Delia and will continue to support her as long as she holds this line, which we hope will be as long as necessary. 

Federal coverage will pick back up in the 2028 cycle when we’ll be… ugh… picking a Presidential nominee. Yippee. And by “yippee,” we both mean, in the immortal words of the film Heathers, fuck us gently with a chainsaw

Job Description: 

The AG is the state’s chief lawyer, which means they represent the state in court. They are charged with upholding and defending state law and advocating on behalf of citizens. Yes, those two pieces can sometimes be at odds. OG Girl, I Guess Co-Author Ellen Mayer made a podcast episode to explain this job in more detail.

The Candidates: 

Robert “The Hair” Fioretti (R)

Kwame Raoul (D) incumbent

The Dish:

Dear reader, I cannot fucking believe we have to write about goddamn Bob Fioretti and his ridiculous hair again in the pages of this Guide. We have covered this follicularly festooned fool six times in the history of Girl, I Guess, which I’m pretty sure is more than any other candidate who has crossed over parties during that time except maybe Andre Smith. Fioretti has run for office in almost every single possible election cycle since 2015 (except 2023), losing a whopping seven consecutive races. He’s run for Mayor twice, County Board President and State’s Attorney twice (once each as a Democrat and a Republican), once for State Senate, and now for Attorney General. Wow. He must really, really be bored. He even popped up in Dolton during that stretch, successfully defending America’s Most Corrupt Mayor Tiffany Henyard in a 2022 lawsuit related to a recall effort. 

There really isn’t much more to say about Fioretti at this point. He’s got an ugly website, as always, which he hasn’t updated since last year as of this writing. He seems to be running a single-issue campaign opposing the SAFE-T Act and re-litigating the primary motivating grievance for Cook County Republicans over the last 4 election cycles. Bob is clearly bored, and he’s certainly boring us. He’s truly best ignored at this point, and I’m sure we’ll see Bob back again, either next year or in 2028 when he’ll certainly run for State’s Attorney or Judge or County Hairstylist or something. 

Absolutely not taking Fioretti seriously is incumbent AG Kwame Raoul, who has been very solid and extremely busy during his 8 years in statewide office. Attorney General is also an interesting position as the incumbent, because it’s difficult to run on a platform, rather than on a record; you generally don’t know what actions you’ll have to take while in office, or what Federal fuckery you’ll have to respond to before the term actually begins. Therefore, Kwame (!) is running on his record. And what a record it is. While AG, he’s fighting with the Trump administration to get fired Federal workers their jobs back, launched a Worker’s Protection division of the AG’s office to go after wage thieves, defended election integrity and Illinoisans’ ballot access, fought to protect access to gender affirming care and reproductive healthcare, won lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, pushed for increased gun safety, cracked down on cyberbullying, and is suing vape manufacturers for pushing their products to children. Wowza. And yes, Kwame(!) has some gross-sounding tough-on-crime language scattered across his accomplishments, too, but progressives can rest assured that the vast majority of it is addressing crimes that actually hurt people, rather than throwing poor people in prison for no real reason.

Forget Fioretti. Voters in Illinois should elect Kwame Raoul to a third term as Attorney General. 

Job Description: 

The Secretary of State oversees one of the largest State-level bureaucracies of any individual elected official in the country, comprising 21 departments and over 4000 employees. It’s not just the DMV, y’all! The Secretary of State oversees everything from the Inspector General, to the Court of Claims (a special Court involving claims specifically against the State or about State employees), to the State Archives. The scope of the Secretary of State’s job is absolutely batshit, and it’s only expanded in recent years. 

The Candidates: 

Diane Harris (R)

Alexi Giannoulias (D) incumbent

The Dish:

Well, dear reader, what was originally going to be some fun, light coverage of an inevitable smackdown in the Secretary of State race is now much more complicated. Surprising absolutely nobody and validating months of rumors, Alexi Giannoulias tossed his hat into the ring for the 2027 Mayoral race in the early hours of August 2nd. By running for two offices at once, Giannoulias is absolutely pulling a Mendoza (ironically Susana Mendoza is also running for Mayor but this time gave up the Comptroller’s seat to do so), but I imagine that he’ll do much better than his colleague. Despite his success in Statewide roles, many Chicagoans are concerned that as a Mayoral hopeful, he'll be little more than an empty suit… or, in Giannoulias's case, a wet t-shirt. There will be many thousands of words scribed about his candidacy between now and February, at least some of which will certainly be in the forthcoming Municipal version of this Guide, so I’ll keep this section brief. 

Whatever we may feel about the foolishness of running for two offices simultaneously— I happen to think that it’s deeply stupid, overtly disrespectful to voters, and indicative of massive political hubris— nobody can deny that Alexi Giannoulias has been a very good Secretary of State during his term. He’s a well-organized bureaucrat who has brought needed updates and modernizations to an office that functioned well enough, but was too often stuck in 2012. Giannoulias finally rolled out the X gender marker on Illinois IDs, made it harder for libraries to politically ban books, modernized the DMV, and used his office’s authority to fight back against ICE’s license plate shenanigans, among other successes. He also won the hearts of millions of gay men by winning the impromptu wet t-shirt contest at the 2023 Pride Parade. If nothing else, he’s certainly earned another term as Secretary of State.

Attempting to stand in Giannoulias’s way and inspiring exactly zero confidence with her 1995-chic website is Dianie Harris, a Joliet-area Republican, retired ComEd customer service worker, current dress shop owner, and extensive User of Secretary of State Services. Seriously, this woman’s qualifications for the office are so thin that she lists her allegedly spotless driving record in her website bio. Oy. Harris also has only $2800 cash on hand as of this writing, with nearly $2600 of that in the form of loans to herself. Extra oy. Harris’s platform also seems to be mostly single-issue, with a couple of tidbits of crazy thrown in there. She wants to expand Secretary of State kiosk and fast lane service into rural areas of the State, which is actually pretty reasonable, but she also wants to do away with appointments and have everyone as a walk-in which is the worst idea I’ve ever heard for the DMV. That might work just fine for very rural parts of Illinois where you’re unlikely to have more than a few people in the office at a time, but can you imagine the chaos it would cause for anywhere with substantial population? Horrifying. Also, slipped in there is a commitment to “clean up voter rolls,” which the Secretary of State does not manage. Third oy. 

Clearly Harris has no idea what she’s talking about and is woefully unqualified to run a County Clerk’s office, let alone be the Secretary of State. Shrug Nation residents should vote for Alexi Giannoulias for a second term, and hold our breath to see if there will be a monster of a Special Election should he become Mayor. 

This race also features what will probably always be the largest financial disparity between two candidates, a whopping $22,096,245.98, which is… a lot of money. 

Job Description: 

Shockingly, this is the first time that Girl, I Guess has ever written about the office of the State Treasurer! The office has gone uncontested in every Primary election since 2014, when incumbent Michael Frerichs took the seat, and for whatever reason the Guide neglected to cover the office in both the 2018 and 2022 General Election Guides. Whoops! 

The Treasurer serves as the state’s Chief Investment Officer and Chief Banking Officer. The Illinois State Treasurer’s Office manages an investment portfolio of approximately $65 billion as of May 2026 and oversees billions of dollars in banking transactions each year. The office also manages key banking and financial services for the State of Illinois, including treasury operations, cash management, investment verification, clearing functions, time deposits, and tons of little constituent-oriented programs such as the iCash unclaimed property program which everyone should check annually!!

The Candidates: 

Max Solomon (R)

Michael Frerichs (D) incumbent

Timothea Papas (G) WRITE-IN

The Dish: 

I’m not going to spend very much time talking about Republican Max Solomon, whose AI website (a .info domain!!) contains probably-fake anonymous endorsements, a barely-more-than-bullet-point platform, and a bio that paints Solomon as the World’s Most Special Man for being able to go through the arduous US immigration process legally. He’s a clown and should be disregarded as such. Instead, I’d like to talk about the Genuinely Politically Complicated Man that is Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs. 

You see, I actually really like Frerichs. He was my State Senator when I was at the University of Illinois, he’s been an excellent Treasurer with no corruption or scandals during his three terms— a minor miracle in Illinois politics— since taking office after a dramatic election win in 2014, and he’s been quietly puttering away in the political background, doing his job. I like that in a Statewide Elected Bureaucrat. 

There are a lot of accomplishments that I could highlight for Frerichs’s tenure as Treasurer, but I believe the most important is his passion for folks’ access to Illinois’s unclaimed property system, I-CASH, which really makes me shep naches about this state. 

Frerichs is even using his platform to make the program more accessible to Illinois’s most vulnerable people, an effort in which I’m proud to be a partner outside of my more public political life. It was discovered that trans people’s ability to use I-CASH is limited by some rather Complicated Bureaucracy Reasons which make it necessary to search both under our legal and dead names for unclaimed property. When this was brought to the Frerichs’s attention, he didn’t just sit back and say “well, guess that’s how trans people need to use the database.” He got involved, took action, and is actively trying to fix the problem as we speak. If we’re successful in finding said fix, the resulting ease-of-use increase for trans people in Illinois could result in the single greatest mass transfer of wealth into the hands of the trans community in the history of the United States. Exciting!

Unfortunately, this is Illinois politics, and few are the Cishet White Guys who can do cool things like fix problems for trans people and not also do something shitty on the side. We can’t have too many Wills Guzzardi, apparently. Yes, I’m talking about the big, nasty, apartheid elephant in the room; Michael Frerichs’s penchant for investing taxpayer dollars in Israel Bonds, with over $100 million total in the State’s investment portfolio (although this represents only .5% of all investment assets). Now, to be fair to Frerichs, these investments didn’t start under him. Illinois first invested in Israel Bonds under Republican Judy Baar Topinka (remember her??) in 2003, and the investment program was expanded upon by none other than Frerichs’s Statewide elected colleague Alexi Giannoulias, back when he was Treasurer. I’m sure that won’t come up at all in the Mayor’s race. Activists have tried to get Frerichs to ditch these investments, but their primary tactic of yelling at him in public has so far produced limited results on the Israel Bonds themselves, although organizers did notch an important win when Illinois quietly divested holdings in the Israeli shekel and companies tied to genocide in 2025. Clearly this investment in Israel Bonds isn’t something that can continue, for a whole slew of reasons. However, dear reader, this Guide Writer would like to propose a solution. And by a solution, I mean everyone’s favorite tool for political change… LEGISLATION! Let’s dig in. 

You see, there are already an absolute fuckton of restrictions on how the Treasurer can invest Illinois taxpayer dollars into, well, pretty much anything. Most of those restrictions are listed in the Deposit of State Moneys Act. This Act even includes (somewhat broad) restrictions on foreign investments, but the Treasurer’s own policies actually go further! He currently restricts foreign state investments to those that are rated at one of the three highest classifications (AAA, AA, A) by two standard rating services (think Credit Bureaus for companies and governments), which is good and prudent and wise fiscal policy. But. Dear reader, Illinois, as we constantly hear, is facing a fiscal crisis. We have a projected structural budget gap of over $2 billion for FY27. It stands to reason that we should be making only the best possible choices when investing Illinois taxpayer money, especially when doing so across the borders of the United States. 

This is why Girl, I Guess is proposing the Illinois Fiscal Responsibility in Foreign Investments Act, which would not only update the insufficient guidelines in the Deposit of State Moneys Act and codify the Treasurer’s own policy, but go further. This legislation will prohibit any Illinois Treasurer from investing the money of Illinois taxpayers in any financial obligation guaranteed by the full faith and credit of a foreign government unless that obligation has the highest possible rating from all of the three major standard rating services: Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch. The bill would also require any bonds in the current portfolio which do not meet this criteria to be sold, and if they cannot be sold, they then cannot be renewed upon maturation. Treasurer Frerichs, I’d like your support for this common-sense legislation, which advances the radical notion that Illinois taxpayers don’t just deserve any investment with our money when it leaves the country, we deserve only the very best. 

Now, to be clear, this legislation is definitely not about Israel. Yes, of course, I personally have significant moral issues with Illinois’s investment in Israel Bonds, and I won’t attempt to pretend otherwise. This proposal is simply a response to a clear vulnerability in Illinois’s existing financial guardrails, and, more importantly, it’s about ensuring that the Treasurer isn’t permitted to dabble in geopolitics with our money. For what it’s worth, Israel Bonds, despite their clean payout record, are not the best investment in the world. They only barely clear the Treasurer’s policy standard (Israel has only a fourth-tier rating from Moody’s and third-tier from S&P and Fitch with the latter having a negative outlook) amid Israel’s myriad institutional crises and economic uncertainty. Current legislative guardrails would permit investments in these risky financial products, alongside others. What if a future Treasurer wanted to invest in Egypt bonds? Or Pakistan bonds? Or Ukraine bonds? All permitted under the law, all fiscally unwise. And while the Treasurer’s policy looks good on paper, the problem with policy is that it can change at the whim of the policymaker, and 99.99% of normal people aren’t paying attention to the details of the Illinois Treasurer’s foreign investment policy. Thankfully dear reader, I am a proud weirdo. 

Now of course, this means that we need to vote Michael Frerichs in for another term, because a Republican would never support such clear-eyed financial policy. With their penchant for brain worms and Anastasia-style ballrooms, they’d much rather invest taxpayer dollars in beef tallow futures or something. So, what do you say, Mr. Treasurer? Let’s transform Illinois’s investment policy for good. You’ve got my number. Call me!

For those of you, dear readers, who cannot stomach voting for Frerichs, you can instead write-in Green Party candidate Timothea Papas, who has registered as a write-in candidate in most Illinois Counties and is also endorsed by this Guide. She was kicked off the ballot earlier in the year, and is running on a platform that explicitly includes divesting from Israel Bonds. 

For those of you, dear readers, who cannot stomach voting for Frerichs, you can instead write-in Green Party candidate Timothea Papas, who has registered as a write-in candidate in most Illinois Counties and is also endorsed by this Guide. She was kicked off the ballot earlier in the year, and is running on a platform that explicitly includes divesting from Israel Bonds.

Job Description:

Represent the interests of their constituents, write, and pass legislation. Approve a budget each year. A lot like the regular Senate, except super different, and instead of being held hostage by a gaggle of barely literate nepotists and doddering octogenarians, we just have some occasional run-of-the-mill corruption.

The Dish:

Vince Romano needs a new hobby. He’s run for the 16th District State Representative seat (located inside the 8th Senate District) a whopping four times, dating all the way back to 2012 when this Guide was just a gleam in the eye of two Jews who were still in separate colleges at the time. After being so uninteresting that we forgot to cover his failed House runs in 2022 and 2018, Vince is finally looking for a promotion to Guy Who Loses State Senate Races. Bless his heart. He’s got no campaign website (the Romano For Rep domain is inactive) or policy stances to speak of, nor does he have an active campaign committee, but do you know what Vince Romano does have, dear reader? Memes. Lots and lots of really stupid Republican memes. A personal and campaign Facebook full of them. Normally I would link a selection of them for you to snort derisively at, dear reader, but they’re just… not funny. So please trust me in knowing that they’re there, I’ve looked at them so that you don’t have to, and that Vince Romano’s candidacy is, much like his memes, best disregarded. 

Thankfully this District has had a stalwart senator since 2018, when incumbent Ram Villivalam primaried Ira Silverstein while the incumbent was mired in one of many-to-come General Assembly sexual harassment scandals. Ram has been hard at work since, especially in the realm of consumer safety and affordability, and this term is no exception. Villivalam pushed bills in the General Assembly that gave rideshare drivers the right to unionize, lowered auto insurance premiums by pushing back against insurance companies, and created safety standards for e-bikes and other low-speed electric vehicles. He’s also not taking anything for granted and respecting his voters by running a full website and a real campaign, which I love to see from someone who’s in Senate Leadership and could easily phone it in. 

8th District voters, this is another easy choice, and you can send Ram Villivalam back to the Senate with confidence.

The Dish: In a race with only two candidates Tom Lally’s campaign website seems to be dedicated to two.. Maybe three people? Hard to tell. Which one is him? I clicked on what I assumed was the campaign website of Tom Lally and got the most AI-generated campaign image I have ever seen. Who is that man? Why does he look 20 years younger and NOTHING like Lally? Are those his dogs? Why do they have the same facial expression? And why the hell is the American flag that big? Talk about a jump-scare. I know AI is everywhere now and nearly unavoidable, but no one prepared me for what that would mean for the already abysmal world of political campaign websites. 

Anyhow, aside from the image, the whole website is hot-fire garbage. I feel as if I lost a significant amount of life expectancy reading through his site. His “overriding factor” for running for political office is that he took offense at Patrick Hanley referring to Trump as a fascist. And that alone was the beginning of his villain origin story. His former work history includes working for Northrop Grumman Corporation, which “instilled in me the importance of supporting our Military and Service Members with the tools to protect our Country.” 🤮

As much as I would like to find a clip or quote of Patrick Hanley using the word “fascist,” I could not find it. What I could find was a candidate endorsed by the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood Action, who had this guide's support earlier this year. If you’d like a more detailed breakdown of the “why” behind Hanley’s endorsement, refer back to this year’s 2026 Primary guide; I don't need to rewrite Stephanie’s words here about why we endorse Hanley, plus I’m still recovering from Lally’s website. 

The Dish: This race is about as boring as it gets. As Raeghn wrote in the Spring, Jones III, who is the son of former Senate President Emil Jones, Jr. and represents a heavily Black south suburban District, is known for his history of getting into assorted sticky ethical situations regarding bribes and red-light cameras. Unfortunately, after he trounced his progressive opponent Ahmed Karrar in the Primary, Ethical Emil is all we’ve got left. Sigh. Still, he’s not all bad. He’s also… a living, breathing Democrat, which makes him better than a Republican by default. Every now and then, we try and find the silver lining here at Girl, I Guess. 

Jones III’s opponent, Brian Skala, a union plumber and former Democrat who bailed on a 2024 State Rep bid, is not a bright side. He’s got a campaign Twitter full of AI slop, a generic platform filled with stock Republican ideas and even stock-ier photos, and less than $25,000 in his campaign account. Snore. 

Southland progressives have had it rough lately, and they deserve better choices than a corrupt guy who didn’t pass any legislation during this General Assembly, but unfortunately the Primary electorate down there didn’t make better choices, so just give a solid Girl, I Guess shrug to Emil Jones III for another non-Republican term. 

The Dish: Frederick Walls, failed 2024 State Rep candidate, is back, and even crazier than before! In 2024 Raeghn told readers about how Walls thought comprehensive health and sexual education was an attack on the “biblical family structure” while covering his failed 34th District State Rep campaign. Walls is now running for Senate, and since his previous run, despite a defunct campaign website, he’s come out on Facebook as a very intense COVID denier and Proud Unvaccinated smoothbrain, and decried the Obama Presidential Center as an “antichrist worship center”. Yikes. Perhaps funniest, and saddest, of all is that his campaign committee is $333.99 in the red as of this writing. Oh Freddy. However, dear reader, I’d be shirking my journalistic duty if I didn’t mention Walls’s one redeeming quality: publicly joining a “Snoopy Is Awesome” Facebook group from his campaign account. 

Elgie Sims, Jr. is basically the exact opposite person. He’s not trying, with no campaign website and a Chrome-flagged-unsafe Senate site, but after 14 years in office and a warchest of nearly $600,000… I can understand why he wouldn’t take Walls seriously. A solid progressive, especially on criminal justice reform, Sims has been at the center of major legislative progress in Springfield since being appointed State Rep in 2012 and subsequently appointed to the Senate in 2018. His signature accomplishment in the Senate was playing a leading role in the development and passage of the SAFE-T Act and the elimination of cash bail, a piece of legislation which he continues to vociferously defend. Yes, he’s gotten plenty of other stuff done, too, but really, in a General election… dear reader, what more do you need to know? Elgie Sims, Jr. is good people, he’s a strong stalwart for good change and community justice, and he deserves another term. The 17th District is funky, stretching from the Far Southside all the way down to Kankakee (where Guide Website Data shows we have 41 readers! Hi Kankakee readers!), but every single one of those folks should be casting their ballot for another Elgie Sims, Jr. 

The Dish: Ahhh, Illinois Blue Dogs… I forgot about these, since we so rarely need to cover them in the Guide! But they’re here this year, with Republican marine veteran and suburban Park District Commissioner Linda Polacek popping her head out of the sand to challenge multi-term incumbent Suzy Glowiak Hilton, a manufacturing engineer who has a fun Midwestern Mom-Butch affect that is dear to this Guide’s heart, for this near-West suburban District. Glowiak-Hilton has served since flipping this District in 2018 during her second bite at the apple, and has been a Senate suburban mainstay since. For her part, Polacek doesn’t seem to be bringing much to the table here, as her platform, carefully concealed at the end of her bio on a hideous American-flag-strewn website, consists of three bullet points and zero actual ideas. 

Glowiak-Hilton, on the other hand, has a real platform! She takes stances on the environment, healthcare, and other key issues. She describes herself as “fiscally conservative but socially liberal” (yes, we still have these), which is a bit cringe, but better than nothing, I suppose. She’s endorsed by Personal PAC, Equality Illinois, Planned Parenthood, and Citizen Action.

Suzy Glowiak-Hilton is experienced, she’s got her eye on the issues, and, most importantly, she’s not a Republican. Near West Suburban readers should give Glowiak-Hilton another term.

The Dish: Western Suburban residents of Shrug Nation, we’ve got your backs. After not covering this race in the 2022 General, where Republican and Midwestern version of Brett Kavanaugh Seth Lewis beat Democrat Lauren Nowak by 4 points in the then-open seat, we think this might be the right time for a good, new-fashioned Collar County Purple District Flipperoo. The 24th Senate District has a tiiiiiiny bit of Cook County in it by way of Schaumburg and Elk Grove Village, but is mostly DuPage County and covers Carol Stream, Wheaton, Roselle, Itasca, Bloomingdale, and other major communities. 

Lewis, an insurance salesman and the incumbent Senator, is no stranger to hard campaigns, having previously run for State Senate in 2016 and 2018 before winning a State House seat in 2020 and moving to the Senate in 2022, and dear reader, there is some dirt on him from back in the day. In 2016 Lewis was linked to the anti-gay Illinois Family Institute, an SPLC-named hate group, and was the beneficiary of a political mailer masquerading as a newspaper (remember those?). In 2023 Lewis was one of only 5 Senators (all Republicans) to vote against a bill that would require schools to notify parents of bullying incidents regarding their children, saying that it would “make it harder to recruit administrators” for schools, which… no. And just this year his response to the very same Illinois Family Institute questionnaire shows that he takes anti-trans, anti-abortion, and anti-immigrant stances on legislation the group wants to use to scare underinformed voters. More publicly, Lewis casts himself as a District-minded anti-corruption crusader, but dear reader, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that any Republican is one Republican too many. 

Facing off against Lewis is civil rights legal worker (he’s got a JD but hasn’t passed the bar) Ben McAdams, who believes that listening to people about their problems and advocating for everyone to have their basic needs met is what makes a good elected official. Ben, I agree! He’s running on a platform of advancing universal healthcare in Illinois and fighting against cuts caused by Trump’s Medicaid machete, fighting hard for progressive revenue, pushing Illinois to adopt a 100% green energy economy (key in this nature-dense District!), protecting economic opportunity for all, and ensuring everyone, especially immigrants (who make up 20% of the DuPage County population), has their civil rights protected. Ben McAdams would be a strong, progressive State Senator in a part of the State that’s getting bluer, more progressive, and leaning hard to the left. Also, crucially for Palestine-minded voters, he’s committed to vote to repeal the State’s BDS ban! McAdams has endorsements from The People’s Lobby, Cook County Latino Dems, Sierra Club, Citizen Action Illinois, West Suburban DSA, Personal PAC, Equality Illinois, The Justice Coalition, and Illinois Progressives. 

Dear DuPage County Reader, y’all have gotten so many fantastic progressives in recent years. Ben McAdams has the potential to be another. Anyone interested in flipping a Republican seat and adding another progressive to the ranks of the Senate Dems should vote for Ben McAdams in the 24th Senate District, who gets a hearty shrug from this Guide. 

The Dish: With longtime Northwest Suburban politico Mark Walker announcing last July that he won’t seek another term in the State Senate, Republicans are attempting to take another stab at this solidly-blue suburban seat. Democrats, thankfully, seem to have found the exact right candidate to hold the seat, and potentially even add a progressive to the Senate at the same time. 

Social worker Carina Santa Maria, a current first-term Arlington Heights Township Trustee and child welfare nonprofit leader, is running to keep the seat in Democratic hands with an extremely thorough platform. Touting her public service background and her lived experience as a first-generation American and the daughter of a refugee, Santa Maria is committing to fight for a public option for Illinois residents on the healthcare exchange, protecting and expanding access for immigrants, LGBTQ people, and other marginalized populations, upholding the SAFE-T Act, championing affordable housing, increasing funding for public schools, continuing to raise the Illinois minimum wage, and strengthening ethics rules in Springfield. Not bad for a political rookie!

Not to be left out of the conversation, Santa Maria’s Republican opponent, retired Marine David Mathis, is running on a platform that, among other things, promises to support the taxpayer-cheating Invest In Kids program (which strips funding from public schools and hands it over to underregulated private institutions), fight Critical Race Theory (so 2020 of him), and whine about how much it costs to be a decent human being to immigrants and asylees who were dumped in Illinois by Texan Republicans. He also felt so strongly about attending and speaking at a Charlie Kirk memorial vigil that he posted the pictures on his campaign website. What a loser. 

This race, like Carina Santa Maria’s Republican opponent, is a no-brainer. 27th District progressives should enthusiastically send Carina Santa Maria to the State Senate.

UPDATE (9/29): Thanks to a tip from an astute reader, we’ve discovered that Republican David Mathis is a little less “husband and Dad” than his personal Facebook describes! It appears that he’s got a profile on the Very Boring Looking dating site “Meetville” where he lists himself as “separated” from his wife. He was even online today, as of this writing! You can tell that it’s him because of his military uniform, which lists his last name, and matches the uniform he wore in a Facebook photo from 2021. I think his wife, with whom he posted a picture on Facebook on September 21st, would like to know about this. Whoopsie!

The Dish: Voters in the Northwest Suburban 29th District may be surprised to see two names on the ballot for this race in November, since incumbent Julie Morrison of Deerfield has been unopposed since 2018. Enter Kate McGrath, yet another generic suburban Republican! McGrath thinks that Illinois needs saving, a weirdly common sentiment among Republicans seeing as most of us living here have yet to succumb to any sort of apocalyptic doom… but when you’re running on a platform that includes “school choice” and “parents’ voice in education,” conservative dogwhistles for “screw taxpayers by using public dollars for private schools” and “let adults yell at teenagers for being gay in public,” perhaps what she thinks Illinois needs saving from are the plethora of human rights we enjoy in this State. Weird. 

Julie Morrison, thankfully, loves our human rights! In fact, she’s running on them! Morrison takes strong platform stances on the rights of children (actual rights like health and safety!), disabled people, and women, as well as stances on healthcare, environmentalism, and preventing youth smoking. For her stances, Morrison is endorsed by a handful of local Democratic Parties and Dem-aligned labor and issue groups. She’s the real deal, and 29th District voters should elect Julie Morrison to another term in Springfield. 

The Dish: No one seems to love AI more than people who frequently use Facebook, and Republicans. Edgardo Perez is a U.S. Air Force veteran, retired police officer, and lover of social media and AI. So much so that he’s opted out of a campaign website; instead, all we have to understand his policies and qualifications for the position are the AI-generated memes plastered on his Facebook and Instagram. Like his September 10th, 2025, post of a “rest in Peace” message for Charlie Kirk on Instagram, or his AI-generated birthday card to America. Aside from having a stance of “support the family,” he also frequently uses the phrase “support the police,” alongside “blue lives” flags. 

It’s been a busy year for Jared Ploger; back in the spring, he also ran for Illinois House of Representatives District 84, losing by a 27-point margin to Girl, I Guess endorsee Saba Haider. I guess you miss every shot you don’t take; Ploger threw his hat into an already crowded pool of Democratic candidates positioning to replace Sen. Linda Holmes after she announced her plan to resign. He wasn't the person Holmes recommended, or the one the Democratic Party chairs of Kane, Kendall, DuPage, and Will selected, but he was the one three chairs unanimously chose. 

Good thing his website handle works for the state House or Senate. Jared Ploger is a teacher, former union member, and former school board member. His campaign is heavily subsidized by the Illinois Federation of Teachers, Chicago Teachers Union, and other educators' groups. As one of his foundational priorities is supporting public schools, that’s a fuck ton better than “support the police,” which is why we’re backing Jared Ploger.

Job Description: Represent their constituents' interests, write, and pass legislation. Approve a budget each year. And, from every cycle here on out, continue to move further and further to the Left as one of the nation’s most progressive state-level legislative bodies.

The Dish: It’s a rematch  in the 2nd District, with overmatched Republican Laura Hruska back again after running in 2024. She appears to be a ballot ghost who has never raised a dime. Southwestern suburban readers will be more than familiar with incumbent Lisa Hernandez, who has served for 20 years and is going for an 11th term. Hernandez also serves as the President of the Illinois Democratic Party, a post which she won over Congresswoman Robin Kelly in 2022 amidst no small amount of drama. She’s got an extensive list of accomplishments to her legislative name, and no real opponent. This is easy; vote Lisa Hernandez in for an 11th term. 

The Dish: Paul Kendrick has some interesting endorsements, from Planned Parenthood to the Gun Violence Prevention Action Committee to others that give me pause, like the Chicago Tribune and some (personally strongly disliked) Alderpeople like Bennet Lawson and Brian Hopkins. I shared more of my views on Kendrick earlier this year, and wow, I really did that. You can review those here if you want a more thorough explanation. Still, unfortunately, we're down to Kendrick, who reads very pro-corporation or big-business, and Justin Kumar, who is running as a Republican. 

Justin Kumar is a finance bro who is the President and CEO of Frontload Group LLC, a venture capital and private equity firm. His website is lackluster, though the floating head in the center of the page made me giggle. Stephanie and I cannot decide if his campaign logo is better suited for a cereal brand, pre-K program, or investment firm. His policy initiatives and “why” are a vague and bland column of high-level words with no clear vision. 

While the 12th district, which includes Lakeview, Lincoln Park, Old Town, the Gold Coast, and Near North, could do better than Paul Kendrick, they could also do worse. 

The Dish: While Terry Nguyen Le doesn’t have a campaign website he did have a failed run for this seat in 2024 against Hoan Huynh. His social media is full of valuable information, the memes he likes, and even some of his political stances on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages. Being the son of a Vietnamese immigrant doesn’t hold him back from making bigoted jokes at other immigrants. Some of his stances include the Republican classic hard-on crime tactics like ending no-cash bail and Democrats' “soft-crime-policies.” He refers to his opponent, Demi Palecek, as “a radical, extreme left activist,” often sharing memes to undermine her activism and poke fun at showing up for an issue you care about. 

Good thing this guide loves radical leftists because Demi Palecek is exactly what we want in a progressive candidate – a queer Latina veteran. This comprehensive platform reflects her values, her loud, in-person, frequent advocacy for immigrant folks, and her prior Golden Shrug endorsement by this guide. You can check out Stephanie’s earlier coverage of her here. Between her and Le, Demi Palecek is the only progressive pick.