Richard J. Durbin

Democrat · IL · U.S. Senate

On the ballot in 2026

Illinois — U.S. Senate

Richard J. Durbin is not among the listed candidates for this seat — the seat is still up in 2026. Juliana Stratton vs. Don Tracy.

Full forecast, candidates and polls for this seat →

Bio

Richard Joseph Durbin is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Illinois, a seat he has held since 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, Durbin is in his fifth Senate term and has served since 2005 as the Senate Democratic Whip and since 2025 as the Senate minority whip. He is the longest-serving Democratic whip since the position was established in 1913.

Full bio on Wikipedia →

Record of service

In office: 43.7 years
Chambers: House 14y, Senate 29.7y
First took office: 1983 (12 terms)
Seniority: 5 of 100 by time served
Age: 81
Senate class: 2 · senior senator

Leadership

Senate Minority Whip · 2005–2007
Senate Majority Whip · 2007–2015
Senate Minority Whip · 2015–2021
Senate Majority Whip · 2021–2025
Senate Minority Whip · 2025–present

District offices

Carbondale, IL · 618-351-1122
Chicago, IL · 312-353-4952
Rock Island, IL · 309-786-5173
Springfield, IL · 217-492-4062

FEC filings ↗OpenSecrets ↗GovTrack ↗C-SPAN ↗Ballotpedia ↗Vote Smart ↗House History ↗Facebook ↗X/Twitter ↗YouTube ↗

Service history, offices and identifiers from unitedstates/congress-legislators (public domain). Years served sum each term rather than subtracting the first start date, so a break in service is not counted as time in office.

Overall lean (DW-NOMINATE)

LeftCenterRight

Issue profile

Taxes & Fiscal

D+0.41

Healthcare

D+0.75

Immigration & Border

D+0.47

Guns

D+0.44

Abortion & Reproductive Rights

R+1.00

Environment & Energy

D+0.75

Crime & Policing

D+0.33

Defense & Veterans

D+0.41

Economy & Labor

D+0.76

Foreign Policy & Trade

D+0.68

Civil Rights & Social

D+0.72

Education

D+0.80

Government & Democracy

D+0.67

Judicial & Executive Nominations

D+0.66

Each issue runs left ↔ right, scored from how the member voted on bills tagged to that issue (−1…+1). Issues with too few votes are blank. Overall lean uses DW-NOMINATE.

How they score against the parties

Richard J. Durbin's voting record compared with each party's national platform, issue by issue — the same similarity score used across the site.

Democratic Party

87%Closest

Green Party

83%

Democratic Socialists (DSA)

79%

Communist Party USA

78%

Libertarian Party

59%

Republican Party

39%

On the political map

Richard J. Durbin (the large ringed dot) among every current member of Congress and the party platforms.

Party platforms:Communist Party USADemocratic Socialists (DSA)Green PartyDemocratic PartyRepublican PartyLibertarian Party

Each small dot is a current member (Dem · Rep); the larger dots are party platforms — click one for its closest members. Economic axis: taxes, healthcare, labor, energy. Social axis: abortion, guns, immigration, civil rights, crime.

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Caucuses & committees

Where Durbinsits in Congress's own organization — each group's lean is computed from its members' voting records. Explore them all on the caucuses and committees pages.

Committees

Most and least aligned members

Treating Durbin's 14 issue scores as a vector, cosine similarity measures whether two voting records point the same way (+100%) or in opposite directions (−100%) — the colleagues whose records align most and least with theirs.