Rep. Margaret Croke, who’s represented this North Side district, including affluent neighborhoods such as Lincoln Park and Old Town, since 2021, is running for the statewide office of comptroller. Four Democrats are running to succeed her.
They are Karim Lakhani, chief development officer for his family’s Chicago-area hotel business; Litcy Kurisinkal, who’s held several local Democratic Party posts; Mac LeBuhn, an attorney who worked in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration; and Paul Kendrick, a former campaign and administration official for Barack Obama.
Lakhani’s campaign is largely funded by family money, and he’s endorsed by CTU, so he doesn’t support the state opting into the new national tax-credit scholarship program. He endorses a graduated income tax, which state voters handily rejected in a 2020 referendum.
Kurisinkal describes herself as a pragmatic progressive and holds many positions in the Democratic Party mainstream, including support for a graduated income tax. But, she says, it needs to be a new proposal that can overcome the skepticism of the voters who rejected it the first time.
By way of demonstrating his willingness to take on tough issues, LeBuhn, 37, cites his experience in Lightfoot’s City Hall, helping to spearhead the former mayor’s effort to end aldermanic prerogative, which gives aldermen effective veto power over most zoning decisions in their wards. That effort ultimately was unsuccessful and helped create Lightfoot’s sour relations with the City Council toward the end of her single term.
We do very much appreciate LeBuhn’s fight for fair legislative maps in Illinois as chairman of CHANGE Illinois. He says he would continue that fight in Springfield.
It’s a close call, but we favor Kendrick, 42, in this race. He calls for a “grand bargain” on Illinois’ pensions — “I’m willing to take on that third rail,” he said at a Feb. 2 candidates’ forum — and he is proposing legislation to crack down on the organized retail-theft gangs in Chicago, a stance he says has gotten him “yelled at in rooms of my own party.”
Kendrick emphasizes the urgent need for Illinois to become more economically competitive. He co-chairs Rust Belt Rising, a group of centrist Democrats seeking to make the party more competitive throughout the Upper Midwest by focusing on economic messaging aimed at working-class voters.
We think Paul Kendrick would be an outstanding state lawmaker, and he is enthusiastically endorsed.
Read all of the Tribune Editorial Board’s endorsements for the 2026 Illinois primary election here.
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