1998 United States Senate election in Illinois

Common card · No. 318809

The 1998 United States Senate election in Illinois was held November 3, 1998. Democratic incumbent Carol Moseley Braun ran for re-election to a second term in office but was defeated by Republican state senator Peter Fitzgerald. In the Republican primary election, Fitzgerald narrowly defeated state comptroller Loleta Didrickson. Braun was unopposed. In the primary elections, turnout was 20.55% with 1,386,694 total votes cast. In the general election, Braun was dogged by a series of controversies which had marred her first term in office, and Fitzgerald led in most public opinion polling, often by a large margin. However, Braun closed the gap late in the campaign by appealing to African American voters. On Election Day, Braun won a large majority of the vote in Cook County, beating polling by several points, but Fitzgerald won the race by a surprisingly close margin. Fitzgerald was the only Republican candidate to defeat an incumbent Democratic senator in 1998.

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