CU-CitizenAccess.org (https://www.cu-citizenaccess.org/tag/2020-election/)
Incumbent Lauren Underwood has spent over $5 million so far on her reelection campaign for Illinois’s 14th Congressional District.
During Underwood’s first election, her expenditures totaled $4.89 million; that number has been exceeded, with Underwood spending $5.3 million for the 2019-2020 cycle so far.
Despite no opposing candidate, U.S. Congressman Darin LaHood outspent all other Illinois Republican candidates during the 2020 election cycle.
So far, out of the other top-spending Illinois Republican candidates running in the 2020 election, LaHood has outspent Jim Oberweis from the 14th District by $90,000, Jeanne Ives from the 6th District by $84,000 and incumbent Rodney Davis from the 13th District by $10,000.
Seeking re-election for a fourth consecutive cycle, Democratic incumbent congressional representative Bill Foster appears to be comfortably spending campaign money outside his own campaign, as he lacks an opponent capable of credibly threatening his seat.
Running in the 11th Congressional District of Illinois for the House of Representatives, Foster’s campaign has spent $1,451,981 so far for his 2020 cycle according to the Federal Election Commission.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger showed an immense change in campaign fund spending for the current 2019-2020 Illinois’ 16th Congressional District election campaign, which includes a decrease of media and advertising and an increase in fundraising spending.
During his previous campaign, Kinzinger’s campaign budget consisted of spending $788,336 toward media-related purchases. However, he has spent only $60,169 in media purchases and $28,459 in advertising purchases so far for his current campaign, which is a total of $88,628.
Long-standing Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky allocated about 75 percent of her spending during the 2019-20 election cycle so far on salaries, fundraising and a contribution of $292,632 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Her spending habits have remained consistent throughout her political career, with her annual Women’s Power Lunch as the biggest individual expense every year.
In his first-time incumbent election cycle, Rep. Sean Casten has spent only $3,157,127 this election cycle as of October 1, nearly half of what he spent last election cycle.
In the 2018 congressional election, Democrat Sean Casten spent upwards of $6 million to overtake the incumbent to become the representative for Illinois’ Sixth Congressional District, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Bobby Rush, Democratic representative for Illinois’ 1st District, has spent $402,044 so far during the 2019-2020 election cycle, with about $41,062 — one-tenth of his expenditures — going to his son, Jeffery Rush.
Isaac Wink, policy analyst at Reform for Illinois, said there may be a reason to keep close attention to these payments.
Democratic Congressman Mike Quigley has spent more than $631,000 so far as he runs for his seventh term as Illinois’ 5th Congressional District’s representative in 2020, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) data.
The expenditures in the 2019-2020 election cycle are a decrease from the amount he spent in the previous cycle, during which he spent over $1.2 million, according to the FEC.
Eight-term Illinois Congressman Daniel Lipinski, who lost his seat in this year’s primary, gave more than $17,000 in campaign money to Catholic schools and churches over the past four years.