Recent Major Developments in Politics
Senator Dick Durbin Announces His Retirement
- On April 23, 2025, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced he will not seek re-election in 2026 and will retire at the end of his current term on January 3, 2027.
- Senator Durbin is in his fifth U.S. Senate term, having first assumed office on January 3, 1997.
- The senator has served as the Senate Democratic Whip (which is the #2 Senate Democrat) since 2005; he is the longest-serving Senate party whip for either party in U.S. history.
- He is currently Senate Minority Whip, a role he has held three times: 2005-2007; 2015-2021; and 2025.
- He also had two stints as Senate Majority Whip: from 2007-2015 and from 2021-2025.
- Senator Durbin has also been the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee since 2021. He is currently Ranking Member and was Chairman from 2021-2025.
- Before serving in the U.S. Senate, Mr. Durbin represented Illinois's 20th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives (1983-1997).
- Electoral Impact:
- Senator Durbin is now the fourth Senate Democrat to announce he will not run for re-election, joining Senators Gary Peters (D-MI), Tina Smith (D-MN), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).
- Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL-2) launched her candidacy for Senate, as has Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton.
- Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL-8) and Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14) have also expressed interest in running but have not formally announced campaigns.
- The Republican field is less clear right now, as two out of the three Illinois congressional Republicans have declined to run, and former Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL-13) has also declined to run.
- Illinois is a blue state; Democrats have won the vast majority of statewide elections this millennium.
- However, Republicans won the state's U.S. Senate race in 2010 and won the state's gubernatorial race in 2014. And the Democrats' presidential margin in the state decreased from 17 points in 2020 to 11 points in 2024.
- Race rating: Likely Dem to Safe Dem
Michael Waltz Removed as National Security Advisor
- On May 1, 2025, President Trump removed Michael Waltz as the U.S. National Security Advisor, effective immediately. Deputy National Security Advisor Alex Wong was also removed from his post.
- The president came to this decision less than two months after the U.S. government group chat leaks, also known as “Signalgate,” in which Mr. Waltz erroneously added Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, to a Signal group chat involving highly classified military operations against the Houthis in Yemen. President Trump and his senior team also reportedly had some other disagreements and frustrations with Mr. Waltz.
- President Trump replaced Mr. Waltz with Secretary of State
Marco Rubio, who will be National Security Advisor on an interim
basis.
- In addition to being the Secretary of State, Secretary Rubio is now also the acting U.S. National Security Advisor, the acting Archivist in the United States, and the acting Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
- Later the same day, President Trump announced that he is nominating Mr. Waltz to be the next U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (UN). The position is still vacant after the White House recently pulled the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) due to concerns about the narrow House Republican majority.
- Unlike the National Security Advisor position, the UN Ambassador position is subject to Senate confirmation. The confirmation process in the Senate could be difficult due to the fallout from the Signalgate incident.
U.S. House Special Elections
- On April 1, 2025, two special elections were held for two vacant Florida U.S. House seats.
- In Florida's 1st Congressional District, which was previously held by Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Republican Jimmy Patronis defeated Democrat Gay Valimont 56.9%-42.3%.
- In a special election to replace now-former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz's open seat in Florida's 6th Congressional District, Republican Randy Fine defeated Democrat Josh Weil by a similar margin (56.7%-42.7%).
- Both Reps. Patronis and Fine were sworn in as the two newest Members of the U.S. House of Representatives on April 2, 2025.
- While both special elections were comfortable 14-point wins for the Republicans, Democrats overperformed in both districts by 18-19 percentage points. With the additions of Reps. Patronis and Fine, the House Republicans currently have a 220-213 majority – which is a three-vote margin – with two vacancies in deep blue Democratic districts.
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