1986 Illinois elections
elections
Elections were held in Illinois on Tuesday, November 4, 1986.
Primaries were held March 18, 1986.
Election information
1986 was a midterm election year in the United States.
Creation of the Illinois Solidarity Party
After LaRouche movement disciples won the Democratic primaries for Lieutenant Governor and Secretary of State, Adlai Stevenson III created the Solidarity Party primarily to run Democratic candidates against them in the general election. He himself dropped off of the Democratic ticket for Governor, which he had won the primary for, and ran instead as the Solidarity Party candidate for Governor. The two Lyndon LaRouche-affiliated candidates, Mark J. Fairchild for Lieutenant Governor and Janice Hart for Secretary of State, had not seen their affiliations with LaRouche well-publicized until after they won their upset primary defeats over Stevenson-backed candidates George Sangmeister and Aurelia Pucinski.
Illinois law required any unestablished party to run a full slate in order to obtain ballot access, thus, Stevenson ran candidates in all races.
Turnout
Turnout in the primary was 26.23%, with 1,602,156 ballots cast. 1,014,908 Democratic and 570,661 Republican primary ballots were cast.
Turnout in the general election was 55.34%, with 3,332,450 ballots cast.
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