Democratic Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski has won reelection to Illinois' 13th Congressional District, defeating Republican challenger Jeff Wilson in a race called by the Associated Press on Election Day. Budzinski faced Wilson as her only opponent on the ballot, and the result extends her hold on a sprawling downstate district that covers portions of seven counties.
The win marks Budzinski's third consecutive term representing the district, according to Yahoo News. The Chicago Tribune reports that with 98% of estimated votes counted, Budzinski had captured 62.6% of the vote to Wilson's share, translating to 157,315 votes for Budzinski against 93,863 for Wilson. Yahoo's account of the race, however, put her margin at 62.23% with all precincts reporting — a discrepancy the available reporting does not reconcile.
The New York Times election results page confirmed the Associated Press call for Budzinski on Election Day, Tuesday, and noted that with most of the results in, the district had voted 15 points more Democratic than it did in the 2024 presidential election.
A District Spanning Seven Counties
Illinois' 13th Congressional District stretches across portions of seven counties: Champaign, Macon, Macoupin, Madison, Piatt, St. Clair, and Sangamon. The Tribune's reporting on how the district voted frames the race within that wide geographic footprint, which mixes university towns, smaller industrial communities, and parts of the Metro East region near St. Louis.
Budzinski ran as the incumbent Democratic congresswoman against Wilson, a Republican, in a district that has consistently backed Democratic candidates in recent cycles. The same district sent Budzinski to Washington in 2024, when the Times' coverage of that race likewise noted the Associated Press called it for her and that Illinois' statewide vote count was later certified.
Following a Pattern From 2024
Tuesday's result tracks closely with the outcome two years earlier, when Budzinski, a Democrat, won the same seat over her 2024 opponent. The repeat victory, paired with the district's sharper Democratic lean compared to the 2024 presidential contest as reported by the Times, underscores the district's continued position as reliably blue territory in a state where downstate races can sometimes run more competitively than Chicago-area contests.
Official, certified vote totals for the 2026 cycle were not immediately available in the reporting reviewed, and the gap between the Tribune's and Yahoo's reported vote-share figures remains unexplained in the available coverage. Budzinski's win nonetheless gives her a third term representing the seven-county district heading into the next Congress.
