Christine McGovern

Christine McGovern

Republican Party

Candidate, Illinois State Senate District 18

Elections and appointments

Next election

March 17, 2026

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Christine McGovern (Republican Party) is running for election to the Illinois State Senate to represent District 18. She declared candidacy for the Republican primary scheduled on March 17, 2026.^[source]

Elections

2026

See also: Illinois State Senate elections, 2026

General election

The primary will occur on March 17, 2026. The general election will occur on November 3, 2026. General election candidates will be added here following the primary.

Democratic primary

Democratic primary for Illinois State Senate District 18

Frances Ann Hurley (D) is running in the Democratic primary for Illinois State Senate District 18 on March 17, 2026.

		Candidate
		Frances Ann Hurley

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	There are no incumbents in this race.
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Republican primary

Republican primary for Illinois State Senate District 18

Christine McGovern (R) is running in the Republican primary for Illinois State Senate District 18 on March 17, 2026.

		Candidate
		Christine McGovern

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	There are no incumbents in this race.
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Endorsements

Ballotpedia is gathering information about candidate endorsements. To send us an endorsement, click here.

2024

See also: Illinois House of Representatives elections, 2024

General election

General election for Illinois House of Representatives District 36

Rick Ryan defeated Christine McGovern in the general election for Illinois House of Representatives District 36 on November 5, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Rick Ryan (D)	59.2	27,487
		Christine McGovern (R)	40.8	18,938

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 46,425
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for Illinois House of Representatives District 36

Rick Ryan defeated Sonia Anne Khalil in the Democratic primary for Illinois House of Representatives District 36 on March 19, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Rick Ryan	57.0	6,963
	Submit photo	Sonia Anne Khalil	43.0	5,263

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 12,226
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Republican primary election

Republican primary for Illinois House of Representatives District 36

Christine McGovern advanced from the Republican primary for Illinois House of Representatives District 36 on March 19, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Christine McGovern	100.0	2,966

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	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 2,966
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for McGovern in this election.

Pledges

McGovern signed the following pledges.

• U.S. Term Limits

2022

See also: Illinois State Senate elections, 2022

General election

General election for Illinois State Senate District 18

Incumbent Bill Cunningham defeated Christine McGovern in the general election for Illinois State Senate District 18 on November 8, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Bill Cunningham (D)	59.4	45,430
		Christine McGovern (R)	40.6	31,111

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 76,541
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for Illinois State Senate District 18

Incumbent Bill Cunningham advanced from the Democratic primary for Illinois State Senate District 18 on June 28, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Bill Cunningham	100.0	20,641

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	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 20,641
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for Illinois State Senate District 18

Christine McGovern advanced from the Republican primary for Illinois State Senate District 18 on June 28, 2022.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Christine McGovern	100.0	10,354

---

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 10,354
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Campaign themes

2026

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Christine McGovern has not yet completed Ballotpedia's 2026 Candidate Connection survey. If you are Christine McGovern, click here to fill out Ballotpedia's 2026 Candidate Connection survey.

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2024

Christine McGovern did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

2022

Video for Ballotpedia

Video submitted to Ballotpedia Released Jun 24, 2022

Christine McGovern completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by McGovern's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Expand all | Collapse all

Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

Rise up! Get involved and change the course of Illinois. We can no longer be silent and allow these disastrous Progressive movements to continue. Life has a way of shifting and changing. I prefer to call it Divine Intervention. I am a mother, a business owner, and am committed to my community where I have lived for almost 25 years. These past two years have brought about many obstacles and opened my eyes to the lack of common sense used in making decisions affecting our state. The division that our Government is causing and the deafening silence from our local elected officials have contributed to the failures of Illinois. This purposeful division needs to end. We are stronger together. I am Christine Shanahan McGovern and I am running for Illinois State Senate in the 18th District. Stand with me in bringing Common Sense back to Illinois. I want to represent you and Illinois by passing legislation to provide better health care to our seniors, veterans and the mentally ill. I want to have programs for our youth to take them off the streets meanwhile addressing the drug crisis and my plan with working with law enforcement to finally put an end to the senseless crime that is affecting our communities. Albert Einstein says the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Together we can Rise up for change to protect our Faith, Family, & Freedom.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

• We are living in a real life game of Monopoly where criminals pass go and get a free get out of jail card. Let's make Illinois Safe Again!
• Illinois needs strong legislatures who will have a plan to stop the massive exodus of residents and businesses. Illinois needs to stop this outrageous taxation on our residents in the areas of property, sales, gas, water, and Chicago's ridiculous bag tax.
• The future is greatly determined by our policies for our children. We need to prioritize a successful foundation. The Progressive path is disastrous. I have witnessed this in the classroom. Teaching our children what to think is wrong. Giving the opportunity to use their own critical thinking skills will pave the way to independent successful adults.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I always thought the Government was there to protect and have policies in place to promote the safety of its citizens. Who were the "geniuses" that came up with the concept of Police Reform and Defunding the Police? Since when are criminals not accountable for their actions? When was it offensive to have a Back the Blue patch on a uniform? Why are we making the most deadly drug possession of fentanyl a misdemeaner? Why are we allowing sexual predators to live closer to schools and parks? Why are we holding the police, who are hired and trained to serve and protect, at standards that prevent them from doing their job? Have the people of Illinois not seen the increase of crime? Have they not seen how our children are being sexualized at school? How did we get to a place where our children attend a public school and they are told that their skin color will define their success? Where they are taught that even though you are born a girl you can now identify as a boy or even a cat? Why have we taken away the voice of the most influential person in a child's life, the parent? Why do we have tampons in boys' bathrooms? Why do we not tell a parent that their child wants to identify as the opposite sex or have an abortion? We are here because of Democratic Liberal Idiotic Legislators! I want to change ALL of these. Let's bring back common sense and our Midwestern values. Protect our kids not the criminals!

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

Campaign finance summary

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Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.

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Christine McGovern campaign contribution history

Year	Office	Status	Contributions	Expenditures
2024*	Illinois House of Representatives District 36	Lost general	$20,516	$18,534
2022	Illinois State Senate District 18	Lost general	$20,180	$21,240
Grand total			$40,696	$39,774
Sources: OpenSecrets,  Federal Elections Commission ***This product uses the openFEC API but is not endorsed or certified by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
* Data from this year may not be complete

See also

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Footnotes

[show]

Current members of the Illinois State Senate

Leadership

Senate President:Don Harmon

Majority Leader:Kimberly Lightford

Minority Leader:John Curran

Senators

District 1

Javier Cervantes (D)

District 2

Omar Aquino (D)

District 3

Mattie Hunter (D)

District 4

Kimberly Lightford (D)

District 5

Lakesia Collins (D)

District 6

Sara Feigenholtz (D)

District 7

Mike Simmons (D)

District 8

Ram Villivalam (D)

District 9

Laura Fine (D)

District 10

Robert Martwick (D)

District 11

Mike Porfirio (D)

District 12

Celina Villanueva (D)

District 13

Robert Peters (D)

District 14

Emil Jones (D)

District 15

Napoleon Harris (D)

District 16

Willie Preston (D)

District 17

Elgie Sims (D)

District 18

Bill Cunningham (D)

District 19

Michael Hastings (D)

District 20

Graciela Guzman (D)

District 21

Laura Ellman (D)

District 22

Cristina Castro (D)

District 23

Suzanne Glowiak Hilton (D)

District 24

Seth Lewis (R)

District 25

Karina Villa (D)

District 26

Darby Hills (R)

District 27

Mark Walker (D)

District 28

Laura Murphy (D)

District 29

Julie Morrison (D)

District 30

Adriane Johnson (D)

District 31

Mary Edly-Allen (D)

District 32

Craig Wilcox (R)

District 33

Don DeWitte (R)

District 34

Steve Stadelman (D)

District 35

Dave Syverson (R)

District 36

Michael Halpin (D)

District 37

Li Arellano (R)

District 38

Sue Rezin (R)

District 39

Don Harmon (D)

District 40

Patrick Joyce (D)

District 41

John Curran (R)

District 42

Linda Holmes (D)

District 43

Rachel Ventura (D)

District 44

Sally Turner (R)

District 45

Andrew Chesney (R)

District 46

David Koehler (D)

District 47

Neil Anderson (R)

District 48

Doris Turner (D)

District 49

Meg Loughran Cappel (D)

District 50

Jil Tracy (R)

District 51

Chapin Rose (R)

District 52

Paul Faraci (D)

District 53

Chris Balkema (R)

District 54

Steve McClure (R)

District 55

Jason Plummer (R)

District 56

Erica Harriss (R)

District 57

Christopher Belt (D)

District 58

Terri Bryant (R)

District 59

Dale Fowler (R)

Democratic Party (40)

Republican Party (19)