Democrats’ nationwide blue tsunami swept through Springfield Tuesday night, too, running up the state party’s supermajorities toward historic highs in the Illinois General Assembly.
While facing criticism from within his own caucus for his handling of sexual harassment allegations by a former member, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s political operation flexed its muscle to flip at least four districts on Election Day.
By Wednesday morning, three additional House seats were still in play for Democrats, potentially paving the way to a staggering 85-33 advantage for Welch’s party.
Democrats have held a 78-40 House advantage over Republicans under Welch’s leadership since 2022. That edge already is the largest in modern history on a starkly gerrymandered political map.
Illinois Senate President Don Harmon was poised to expand the veto-proof Democratic majority in the upper chamber as well, grabbing four new seats across the state and potentially two more. If he gets both, Democratic dominance in that chamber would increase to 46-13.
With Democratic blowouts in favor of Gov. JB Pritzker, Attorney General Kwame Raoul, Comptroller-elect Margaret Croke and all other statewide officeholders, Illinois Republicans find themselves in their bleakest position in recent memory.
“The voters rebuked the Republican Party. I don’t think we can equivocate on that,” Illinois Republican Party chair Bob Grogan said. “We have to sit back and look through what it means. It doesn’t mean everything we do is bad, or everything they do is right.”
President Donald Trump, an unpopular war in Iran and rising prices dragged down the ticket, Grogan acknowledged.
“If we were gonna be successful, we needed people to be thinking about Illinois and its problems, and Democrats nationalized the election,” he said.
Among the Democratic spoils was state Rep. Nabeela Syed’s victory over incumbent Republican state Sen. Darby Hills for the northwest suburban 26th Senate District seat, a $6.5 million contest that marked one of the most expensive in state history.
But Democrats were also making inroads in territory long considered solid Republican ground, with Ricky Rivard unseating four-term GOP St. Charles state Rep. Dan Ugaste.
And the fate of Rockford state Sen. Dave Syverson — the longest-serving member of the chamber, in office since 1993 — was in the balance Wednesday as Democratic challenger Sarah Mertens held a narrow edge with 85% of expected votes counted.
“Voters were ready to punish anyone with an ‘R’ next to their name,” said Aaron Del Mar, who lost soundly himself as Darren Bailey’s running mate for governor. “There was a tremendous amount of national headwinds.”
The Welch-controlled Democrats for the Illinois House political committee raised some $35 million to tighten its grip on the Capitol.
He’ll still face a battle to hold on to the speaker’s gavel in January, as several members of his caucus have begun organizing behind closed doors to name a new speaker in the wake of Welch’s handling of misconduct allegations leveled against former Plainfield state Rep. Harry Benton. Democrats still held on to that 97th District seat with the help of a $1.6 million infusion from Welch’s operation.
Welch called their big night across the board “a testament to the strength of our members, the dedication of our campaigns, and the voters who continue to place their trust in House Democrats.”
“We set out to protect our incumbents, expand our majority and make sure members had the resources necessary to compete and win,” Welch said in a statement. “Our historic supermajority is not just a reflection of electoral success. It is a mandate to continue delivering meaningful results for the people of Illinois.”
Harmon said they reached “an overwhelming victory for Democrats because we’ve been focused on what matters to voters. We’ve fought to lower costs, improve healthcare and stop the Trump administration in its tracks. We’re excited to get back to work on behalf of the people with our new majority.”
Political funds controlled by Harmon carried more than $32 million into the home stretch of the campaign season, dwarfing Republican war chests that have shrunk over the last decade with the exodus of conservative megadonors like Ken Griffin.
The Illinois GOP has withered due largely to Trump’s deep unpopularity in suburban areas that long provided the lifeblood of the state party.
But members of the hard-line conservative Illinois Freedom Caucus, the fiercest Trump supporters in the General Assembly, suggested their party should respond to the bloodbath by leaning toward their pole.
“How much worse does it need to get before we try something new?” members of the downstate caucus said in a statement. “We look forward to hearing from our colleagues about their ideas for the future, because the only way to influence change is by winning elections.”
Grogan said his party’s postmortem starts now.
“As you constantly dig deeper, eventually you hit bedrock, and maybe that’s something you can actually build a foundation on,” he said. “We need to stop the internal squabbles. We need to look at candidate recruitment. We have to do better job explaining what we’re doing, because the public is impatient, and justifiably so.”