Illinois Keeps Its 14-3 House Split While Five Open Seats Change Hands Within the Democratic Party

Illinois will send the same partisan split to the next Congress that it sent to this one: 14 Democrats and three Republicans, on the Illinois congressional election results 2026 as of November 5, 2026. CBS News projected a winner in all 17 districts after the polls closed on November 3, and Capitol News Illinois reported that the Democratic-drawn map "appear[s] to have worked as planned, with the status quo prevailing" for the delegation. The returns are unofficial until the canvass.

What did change is who holds five of the seats. Democrats won all five districts left open by retirements or by members who ran for the Senate, CBS News Chicago reported, so Illinois elects five new members of the House: Donna Miller in the 2nd District, Patty Garcia in the 4th, La Shawn Ford in the 7th, Melissa Bean in the 8th, returning to a seat she held from 2005 to 2011, and Daniel Biss in the 9th. The three Republicans, Mike Bost in the 12th, Mary Miller in the 15th and Darin LaHood in the 16th, all won by 10 p.m., according to Capitol News Illinois.

What the District Markets Priced Going In

The House boards this site covers treated every one of these seats as decided before the vote, and none of them was wrong. On November 2, 2026, the cheapest Yes on the favorite's party was 94% or higher in all ten districts with a page here, and Kalshi's 94% in the 4th District was the lowest of them, which means the markets saw no seat in Illinois as genuinely in play between the parties.

The least certain of them was the 4th District. Kalshi had the Democratic Party at 94% there on November 2, 2026, against Polymarket's 96%, and Kalshi had the Republican Party at 0.9%. That lower price reflects a contest the board never treated as competitive between the parties but did treat as unusual: CBS News Chicago described Patty Garcia's path to the seat as following "months of accusations of using machine politics," after Rep. Jesus "Chuy" Garcia withdrew at the last minute and left her the only Democrat on the March ballot. She beat Republican Lupe Castillo, the independent Chris Getty and Ed Hershey of the Working Class Party, CBS News projected. The race is on the 4th District market.

The open 8th District was close behind at the top of the uncertainty list. Polymarket had the Democrats at 96% there on November 2, 2026, the cheaper of the two venues, and Bean led Republican Jennifer Davis by 116,252 votes to 63,187 as of 12:15 p.m. on November 4, Shaw Local reported, a gap of roughly 30 points that left the price looking cautious rather than wrong. The district's board is on the 8th District market.

The Seats That Were Once Competitive

The 17th District was the Democratic seat most often described as a possible target before this year. Eric Sorensen, first elected in 2022 according to CBS News Chicago, was defending it for the second time. On November 2, 2026, Kalshi and Polymarket both had the Democrats at 97% there, which means the market treated the seat as safe rather than as the swing district it was in earlier cycles, and CBS News projected that Sorensen won re-election. Capitol News Illinois noted that the 17th and Nikki Budzinski's 13th were the closest Democratic-held districts on the map and that Cook Political Report rated both "Solid D" going in; both incumbents won. The earlier stories on the cash gap in the 17th found the market had priced the race as safe weeks before the result, and the 17th District market carries the board.

On the Republican side, the 16th District was the one where party insiders had wondered whether a strong Democratic year could carry the underfunded newcomer Paul Nolley past LaHood, Capitol News Illinois reported. The market never shared that hope. Kalshi and Polymarket both had the Republicans at 97% in the 16th on November 2, 2026, while Polymarket had the Democrats at 3%, which means traders saw Nolley's path as a long shot, and LaHood won. In the 12th, Polymarket had the Republicans at 98% and Bost beat Democrat Julie Fortier; in the 15th, Kalshi had them at 99% and Miller beat Democrat Jennifer Todd. The boards are on the 16th District market, the 12th District market and the 15th District market.

The Safe Seats and the New Members

The Chicago-area Democratic seats closed out as the boards expected, which means the five districts below held no surprise at all. Polymarket had the Democrats at 98% in the 1st District, where CBS News projected that Rep. Jonathan Jackson beat Republican Christian Maxwell; Kalshi had them at 99% in the 2nd, where Donna Miller beat Republican Mike Noack, and at 98% in the 3rd, where CBS News projected Rep. Delia Ramirez's re-election. In the 11th, Kalshi had the Democrats at 97% and Rep. Bill Foster beat Republican Jeff Walter, CBS News projected. Block Club Chicago reported that the Associated Press called the 2nd at 7:55 p.m., the 7th at 7:54 p.m. and the 1st at 7:58 p.m., all within an hour of the polls closing. The district pages are the 1st District market, the 2nd District market, the 3rd District market and the 11th District market.

Elsewhere, CBS News projected re-election for Reps. Mike Quigley in the 5th, Sean Casten in the 6th, Brad Schneider in the 10th, Budzinski in the 13th and Lauren Underwood in the 14th, and wins for Ford over Republican Chad Koppie in the 7th and for Biss over Republican John Elleson in the 9th. Those seven districts have no market page on this site. Capitol News Illinois noted that national forecasters had not treated Illinois as a major front in the fight for control of the House, because its congressional map was drawn to give Democrats a safe hold on 14 of the 17 seats, and the result is the map doing what it was built to do.

What the Prices Could Not Tell a Reader

A winning-party price is a forecast of which party takes a seat, not of who the member will be or how the delegation will vote. Five of Illinois's 17 seats change members without changing party, and in the 4th and the 8th the more interesting questions in 2026 were inside the Democratic primary in March rather than on the November board. Every district board closed with its favorite at 94% or more on November 2, 2026, Kalshi's price in the 4th being the lowest, which means the general election was the least uncertain part of the Illinois House year, and the November result confirms it. Both venues quoted the winning party at 100% in every one of the ten covered districts by November 5, 2026, and each market is listed as resolved.

What Is Still Pending

The figures here are unofficial. Under the State Board of Elections' calendar, each election authority with a website had to post its count of uncounted ballots within 48 hours of the polls closing, a deadline that falls on November 5, 2026, and November 10, 2026 is the last day for a provisional voter to submit information that verifies a registration. Late-arriving mail ballots are still being tallied, Block Club Chicago reported, and the Chicago Board of Elections has 21 days to finalize the city's results, according to CBS News Chicago. None of the 17 races was close enough on election night for those ballots to change a winner; they will change the margins. The next dated beat is the November 10 provisional deadline, followed by the county canvasses. The statewide results are covered on the Illinois elections page, with the Senate result and the governor's result on their own pages.