Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin will not seek a sixth term next year, confirming to WBEZ in an Illinois exclusive that he will leave office in 2027 in a long-awaited move certain to set off a massive, intraparty succession fight.
“I’ve decided not to run for re-election. So a year and a half from now, I’ll be wrapping up. I plan on working full-time until that moment, but I’m not going to be waging a campaign for re-election,” Durbin said during an interview in downtown Chicago.
A major reason for his decision boiled down to one thing: his age. By the time a sixth term would end, Durbin would be 88.
“It’s time,” Illinois’ 80-year-old senior senator who grew up in East St. Louis said. “You observe your colleagues and watch what happens. For some of them, there’s this miraculous aging process where they never seem to get too old.
“Take Bernie Sanders, for example, who’s older than myself, or Chuck Grassley, who still does a town meeting in every county of the state each year,” he continued, referring to Vermont’s octogenarian independent U.S. senator and to Iowa’s nonagenarian Republican senator, who both are older than Durbin.
“But for a number of other people, they’re not so lucky,” he continued. “So, you watch aging, and I try to gauge it to the point where I can walk out the front door. I don’t have to be carried out. I feel that way now. I’m physically and mentally strong. But I don’t want to wait too long and test fate.”
Durbin had kept a tight lid on his decision, sharing news with a very close circle of friends. Durbin notified his staff Wednesday morning that he would not be seeking re-election.
WBEZ and The New York Times first reported Durbin’s decision.
The long list of potential successors
His announcement figures to have seismic effects on Illinois politics, where a long roster of Democrats quietly have been jockeying since last year to position themselves as his heir apparent should he decide to step aside.
The list of potential Democratic successors is long and led by the likes of former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and northwest suburban U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who has amassed a $19 million political warchest.
Other Democrats potentially in the mix include U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly.
Durbin said he does not intend to endorse a candidate in the primary — unless he thinks something emerges that “is serious and I need to address it.”
“There are at least a dozen names that I think are serious. You’ve named a number of them,” he said, citing the list of potential candidates listed above. “But there is a larger number who have approached me and said they might be interested in it.”
Even though Democrats don’t control either chamber of Congress or the White House, losing Durbin and his seniority on Capitol Hill will be a blow for the state. As the Senate Democratic whip, Durbin is the No. 2-ranking member of his political caucus, which gave him outsized influence on the nation’s politics and on federal policy. He also is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and spent 26 years on the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is the chamber’s main budget-writing panel.
Durbin’s departure gives an opening — albeit a longshot one — to Illinois Republicans to grab one of the state’s genuine plum political posts. The last Republican U.S. senator in Illinois was Mark Kirk, who was defeated in 2016 after one term by Tammy Duckworth, who remains in the seat.
Had Durbin chosen to run in 2026, he would have stood as a prohibitive favorite for re-election given that Republicans have failed to mount competitive elections against him during any of his five runs for Senate.
The Trump critic
There were no signs from within the Democratic Party that anyone was contemplating a primary challenge against Durbin next year, but he faced moments of Trump-drivenrestlessness from some progressive allies at home.
Last month, Durbin drew uncharacteristically harsh criticism from a coalition of prominent Democratic-aligned groups. That group, which included the Chicago Federation of Labor, the abortion-rights group Personal PAC, Equality Illinois and others, said it was “profoundly disappointed” in his vote for a continuing budget resolution sought by the Trump administration to keep the federal government from shutting down.
Durbin defended his position, saying a shutdown would have plunged the country into chaos and turmoil, and later met with the group to explain his vote.
Still, Durbin has been a frequent and tough critic of Trump’s trade policies, cabinet appointments and dismantling of the federal government through mass layoffs and agency closures.
It’s an opposition role Durbin says he’ll continue to perform during his remaining 20 months in office, a period when he says the future of American democracy is at an “inflection point.” The Trump administration’s flouting of court orders and his attacks on constitutional norms have Durbin uncertain how America’s second fixation with Trump will end.
“I’ve asked some skilled attorneys here in Chicago, ‘What’s the end game here?’ The court order — he defies it. The court tries to enforce it. Where do we go? They said, ‘Senator, we don’t have any precedent in history for this. He’s challenging the constitution at a level we’ve never seen before.’”
Leaving at such an existential moment gives Durbin pause.
“When I think about that and what’s at stake, yeah, I think long and hard if this is the right decision. But I know I have to do it,” he said.
Durbin’s rise to power
When Durbin first ran for Senate in 1996 to succeed retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul Simon, he did so with early support from Simon. Clad in his trademark bowtie, Simon appeared in a memorable campaign commercial with Durbin touting him as his preferred replacement, and Simon crisscrossed the state, stumping with Durbin.
That backing helped propel Durbin past a splintered Republican Party that unexpectedly had nominated a lawmaker from the party’s far right flank, former Rep. Al Salvi, husband of the state Republican Party’s current chair, Kathy Salvi.
Prior to becoming senator, Durbin was a seven-term congressman who regarded Simon as a close friend and longtime political mentor.
Durbin’s first job in government was working for Simon when he was Illinois lieutenant governor. The senator’s first genuine taste of politics came before that when he volunteered in the losing 1966 re-election campaign of longtime Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul Douglas, a mentor of Simon’s.
Douglas and Simon each amassed political resumes free of any hint of corruption. And so it has been for Durbin these past 42 years in federal office, including the past 28 in the Senate.
With his multi-decade tenure, Durbin stands as the longest-serving, popularly-elected Illinois senator in state history. Assuming he finishes out his existing term in January 2027, Durbin’s time as senator will surpass the 30-year, appointed term of 1800s-era U.S. Sen. Shelby Morris Cullom, who served from 1883 to 1913, to become the longest-serving Illinois senator outright.
The underestimated power of downstate voters
In some respects, Durbin is an anomaly from a different era when Democrats south of Interstate 80 could still win elections. That part of Illinois is now mostly ruby red politically.
During Durbin’s five U.S. Senate campaigns, he steamrolled a list of Republican sacrificial lambs, always exceeding 10-percentage-point wins statewide. In one year, 2008, he nearly scored a 40-percentage-point blowout over his opponent by securing an eye-popping 68% of the vote.
But in his last two tries, Durbin’s longtime home, Sangamon County, went with his Republican challengers, underscoring the region’s hardening Republican identity and how Durbin’s real electoral strength lay in Chicago and vote-rich, Democratic collar counties.
“A fellow named Lincoln had the same problem. He’d win the election and lose his home county, or at least his home precincts regularly,” Durbin said.
His old House district covering part of Springfield and rural areas surrounding the capital is an area that elected him seven times to Congress, but he says he likely could not win there now.
“I kind of built up the support in that area, and I was way over 50% in support. Now I couldn’t carry that area if I was carrying a gun around in my pocket,” he said, alluding to the region’s deep gun-rights bent. “It’s just a very tough political area. So, things change, voters change, but you should never give up on part of our state.”
Durbin urged his successors to abide by that principle and not neglect downstate, even if it’s an area in which Republicans have a clear majority. His party has an obligation to reach out to all areas of Illinois, he said.
“My advice to each and every one of them is, get to know the entire damn state from one end to the other. Don’t let the people down in southern Illinois say, ‘I never see that senator.’ Be part of their lives. It’s an important part of our state, and don’t take for granted they’re going to vote for you or against you,” he said. “Do your job.”
Durbin credited his wife, Loretta, and their children for having “stood with me and accepted the demands of my public career.” And in this major moment of bringing his political career to a close, Durbin said his family was again behind him.
“This is a family undertaking,” Durbin said of his choice not to seek reelection. “They knew I had to make the decision. And they’re with me, and that makes a big difference.”
Durbin’s historic career
Over his long Senate tenure under five different presidents, Durbin has left a lasting mark.
When Democrats controlled the Senate and Democrat Joe Biden was in the White House, Durbin chaired the influential Senate Judiciary Committee. There, he steered the confirmation of 235 Biden-appointed judges to lifetime spots on the federal bench. Among them was Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s high court.
As a congressman, Durbin delivered a pivotal legislative victory in ridding public places of smoking. He wrote the federal law in 1987 that ended smoking on airplanes, which later paved the way for smoking prohibitions in bars and restaurants, workplaces, public buildings and hospitals. Smoking-related deaths subsequently plummeted.
Another of Durbin’s priorities aimed to create safeguards from deportation for undocumented young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. In 2001, Durbin filed his first legislation on the topic. But it wasn’t until 2012, under President Barack Obama’s establishment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, that Durbin’s push became reality.
Through last September, that program that allows young immigrants to study and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation had impacted more than a half a million people, according to Durbin’s office. Trump has signaled an interest in eliminating the program, however, and it has been the focal point of legal challenges from Republican-led states.
And on abortion, Durbin, a Roman Catholic, was a convert to the abortion-rights movement. In the late 1980s, he opposed abortion rights, even advocating for the overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case that legalized abortion. But Durbin switched course after hearing individual stories from rape and incest survivors.
In 2004, Durbin was barred from receiving communion in his home Springfield parish on the basis of his abortion-rights position as senator. That directive from two successive local bishops remains in place, and Durbin has characterized being denied communion as “not a happy experience.”
Durbin’s lasting influence
Durbin has helped shape and promote younger Democrats in big ways.
Durbin was the first U.S. senator to endorse then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s bid for president. Durbin’s backing was followed by other big-name Democrats, including Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy, picking Obama over his primary rival, Hillary Clinton, for the Democratic Party’s 2008 presidential nomination.
Closer to home, Durbin was a key backer of Duckworth for U.S. Senate. In 2015, he endorsed her candidacy to unseat Kirk, the one-term incumbent Republican, the following year. The endorsement helped put Duckworth over the top in a three-way primary, and she went on to swamp Kirk in the 2016 general election by nearly 1 million votes.
“She’s one of my best friends. She’s one of the most effective members of the Senate. When Tammy Duckworth takes to the [Senate] floor to talk about veterans or the military, people listen, as they should, as we all should. So, it’s not as if I’m abandoning the state,” Durbin said. “I’m leaving it in good hands with Tammy Duckworth.”
As for how he hopes Illinois voters remember him when he leaves office in 2027, Durbin said, “I hope they believe I’m honest, and I hope they believe I’ve worked hard at the job, and I’ve done some things that might improve the lives of themselves and their families. That’s all I can ask for. That’s the bottom line.”
Dave McKinney covers Illinois government and politics and was the longtime Springfield bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times.
