Chicago young voter turnout jumped from previous midterm primary, but it’s no ‘systemic rise’

The more than $50 million from super PACs, dark money and special interest groups that poured into this week's primary races across the Chicago area proved to be a significant motivator for young people to vote.

Finding out who was funding which campaigns was among the first topics Alan Cervantes, 24, researched when deciding for whom he would cast his votes. He was mostly moved to vote against candidates who received money from groups that support U.S. military aid to Israel amid the deadly conflicts in the Middle East.

“I cannot feel comfortable with our tax money going to atrocities over there, especially because we have so many people at home who need that money and instead it’s going to war,” said Cervantes, a Hoffman Estates resident who voted in suburban Cook County and helped mobilize his peers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to vote.

Preliminary voter turnout data showed the number of voters aged 17 to 34 notably increased in the 2026 primary election compared to the 2022 midterm primary, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Residents who are 17, but will be 18 years old by the November general election, are allowed to vote in the primary.

According to the Board of Elections, about 85,000 people between 17 and 34 voted in Tuesday’s primary, with more mail-in votes still to be counted until March 31. That’s up from the close to 62,000 voters in that age group in the 2022 primary, but it’s similar to the 86,000 in the 2018 primary.

An age breakdown of voter turnout in suburban Cook County was not immediately available.

“Money in our politics was a really big one this year,” said Stevie Valles, CEO of Chicago Votes, which collaborated with Chicago Public Schools and Noble Network of Charter Schools to help thousands of students vote. “We saw a lot of spending from different sources — this election season more than many others, that came up amongst young people more often.”

But other issues also drove young voters to the polls, like affordability, federal immigration enforcement, health care access, education funding and racial justice, Valles said.

Latrice Johnson, 29, from South Shore, was especially interested in judicial races in her district because “judges make a lot of decisions.” Among her most passionate votes was for Radiance Ward, a Cook County assistant public defender who won the Democratic primary race for judge in the 1st subcircuit.

Simply exercising her right to vote was most important to Johnson, though.

“It’s a valuable thing to be able to go out to vote because there were so many people that have gone before me, gone before us as a Black community who fought really hard [for the right to vote],” Johnson said.

Primary elections tend to be driven by voters aged 55 and older, said Max Bever, the Chicago Board of Elections director of public information.

The plurality of voters in this year's primary were between 65 and 74 years old, making up almost 40% of the ballots cast. The 17 to 24 age group made up nearly 17% of votes and ages 25 to 34 were about 18% — the two lowest of all age groups, according to Chicago Board of Elections data as of Tuesday night.

The latter numbers are a significant jump from the previous primary, which saw about 10% turnout from voters 17 to 24 years old and 14% turnout in ages 25 to 34, according Board of Elections data.

Despite this year’s increase in young voter turnout, Bever said he hasn’t necessarily seen a “systemic rise in younger voters," because they still make up a smaller portion of overall turnout.

“I think [primary elections are] tougher for all voters, but especially for younger voters who are asked to choose a political party and only vote that political party ballot,” Bever said. “I think it’s also somewhat of a question for campaigns and for candidates. Are they reaching out to younger voters? Are they connecting with them? Are they getting them to the polls?”

Kayla Pilgrim, 20, of Berwyn, wanted to be a number in the voter turnout figures.

“I didn’t want my voice left out of that data,” Pilgrim said.

She said young voters should show up for elections — especially primaries when voters can choose which type of candidate they want in the general election — because it will show future candidates how to shape their platforms to attract the youth vote.

“It’s important to be collected so that when other people look at [which] platforms garnered support, it then encourages other political leaders to make sure that when they run in the future, that their positions actually are in line with what young people care about,” Pilgrim said. “And you can show that in the primaries.”