Maya Dukmasova
People waited in line to vote in the June 28, 2022 Cook County primary election at the Merlo branch of the Chicago Public Library in Lakeview.
Editor’s note: The election results in this story are preliminary and could still change. We will update this story as official results become available.
With most of the votes in Tuesday’s Cook County judicial primary election counted, 26 new judges are poised to move into their first six-year terms on the Cook County Circuit Court. The First District Appellate Court will welcome two new justices for 10-year terms. One race will be decided in the November election, as Democratic and Republican candidates will face off to fill a vacancy in the northwest-suburban 13th subcircuit.
There are still about 96,000 mail-in ballots that have not yet been turned in, though city and county election officials said they did not expect all of them to be returned. Ballots postmarked by Election Day will be counted. As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 98% of precincts in Chicago and suburban Cook County were reporting results.
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If the results hold, the new class of circuit court judges will include 16 women and 13 men. Six of the winning candidates are Black, five are Latinx, and three are Asian American; the rest are white. But the election did not add significantly to the diversity of the bench, as half of the winning candidates of color are already sitting judges.
Eight of the candidates slated by the Cook County Democratic Party for the 10 countywide circuit court vacancies appeared to have won. The exceptions were Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. (21st Ward) and former Chicago Police Department attorney Yolanda Sayre, based on the vote tallies available at press time.
However, neither of the appellate court candidates slated by the county party succeeded in their bids. One of the new appellate judges is Debra Walker, who is currently assigned to the Cook County Circuit Court’s domestic relations division. She is joined by Raymond Mitchell, now a judge in the chancery division. Walker and Mitchell are white.
Current and former elected officials did not do well in their judicial contests. In addition to Brookins (who is losing to personal injury attorney Lisa Taylor), Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th Ward) looks likely to lose in his bid in the 11th subcircuit to Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Aileen Bhandari. Former Cook County commissioner and former state Rep. John Fritchey finished last in a three-way race for an 8th subcircuit judicial seat. The winner of that race, Bradley Trowbridge, is a family law attorney who made three prior unsuccessful runs for judge.
As is typical for Cook County judicial contests, many of the candidates had backgrounds as county prosecutors or public defenders. Pending the outcome of the 13th subcircuit contest, nine of the new circuit court judges will be current or former assistant state’s attorneys, continuing Cook County’s traditional prosecutor-to-judge pipeline. Only two are public defenders — Thomas More Donnelly and Charles “Charlie” Beach are also already sitting judges.
It was a good year overall for judges running for judge. All three associate judges (who would have stayed on the bench even if they’d lost) were successful in their bids. And seven of the eight judges temporarily appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to fill vacant seats won their first full terms on the court. The one exception was John W. Wilson, who appears to have lost his 1st subcircuit race to family law and estate attorney Maria Barlow. Notably, while Wilson came recommended by all 13 bar associations, Barlow did not participate in the evaluation process and had negative ratings from all of them.
In another noteworthy subcircuit race, former Judge Jackie Portman-Brown lost in her historic bid to return to the bench. The four-way race for a 5th subcircuit vacancy was swept by Timothy W. Wright III, an attorney with a long history in local public interest law and government service.
In the west-suburban 4th subcircuit, ShawnTe Raines-Welch, an attorney who represents several south-suburban municipalities and the wife of Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, is in the lead to win against three opponents. Political connections to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan did not appear to help James Gleffe in the south-suburban 15th subcircuit, however; he lost by a wide margin to family law attorney Bernadette Barrett.
The northwest-suburban 13th subcircuit had the only vacancy with Democratic and Republican primaries. On the Democratic side, the race is still too close to call between prosecutor James “Jack” Costello and public defender Joe Gump. Attorney Gary Seyring appears to have won the GOP primary for the third election in a row. In 2020, Seyring lost to Susanne Groebner, who died suddenly in February. Groebner’s husband chaired Costello’s campaign committee.
In all the other contests, the winner of the Democratic primary will run unopposed in November. New judges will be sworn in in December.
Turnout for the June 28 primary as of Wednesday afternoon hovered just below 20% in Chicago and the Cook County suburbs. By contrast, in the 2018 midterm primary election, Chicago turnout was at nearly 33% and suburban turnout was around 29%.
Projected 2022 Cook County judicial primary winners
Note: These results are preliminary and could still change. Additional information on every candidate can be found here.
Appellate court (1st district)
Debra B. Walker
Raymond W. Mitchell
Circuit court (Countywide)
Lisa Michelle Taylor
Tracie Porter
Diana López
Thomas E. Nowinski
Elizabeth “Beth” Ryan
Rena Marie Van Tine
Michael Weaver
Ruth Isabel Gudino
Araceli R. De La Cruz
Thomas More Donnelly
Circuit court (Subcircuits)
Maria M. Barlow (1st)
Nick Kantas (4th)
ShawnTe Raines-Welch (4th)
David L. Kelly (5th)
Timothy W. Wright III (5th)
Charles “Charlie” Beach (6th)
Kerrie Maloney Laytin (6th)
Marcia O’Brien Conway (7th)
Bradley R. Trowbridge (8th)
Stephen Swedlow (8th)
Sanjay Tailor (9th)
Barry Goldberg (9th)
Aileen Bhandari (11th)
Iris Y. Chavira (14th)
Viviana Martinez (14th)
Bernadette Barrett (15th)
13th subcircuit – to be decided in November general election
Republican: Gary William Seyring
Democratic: Too close to call
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Judge Debra Walker would be the first LGBTQ person on the Illinois Appellate Court. Walker does not identify as LGBTQ.
