Jeffries, top Illinois Dems hope voters will punish Republicans in 2026

SPRINGFIELD – Illinois Democrats brought some of their biggest names to Springfield Tuesday to call attention to the massive cuts that will take effect in the coming years for programs that benefit low-income communities.

At one event, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski hosted the Democratic leader of the U.S. House, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, for a roundtable discussion at a Head Start school to talk about cuts to early childhood education and the food assistance program known as SNAP.

And at a separate event, Durbin joined Sen. Tammy Duckworth at a Springfield hospital to call attention to the impact health care providers will experience from cuts in federal funding for Medicaid.

Those cuts, along with a package of tax cuts, were all included in a massive domestic policy bill that the Trump administration pushed through Congress last month known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

“It’s going to be a tough election for this president because he took the wrong approach when it came to the big and beautiful bill,” Durbin told reporters at the Head Start program. “The American people do not want to see us cut back in the fundamentals in health care, in services of hospitals, to give tax breaks to the wealthiest people.”

Tuesday’s events came as Democrats prepared for the annual Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair, an event where they typically showcase their slate of candidates for the next election and try to stir up public enthusiasm for the race.

Jeffries, of New York, stands to become the next speaker of the U.S. House if Democrats win back control of the chamber in 2026. He is scheduled to be the keynote speaker Wednesday morning at a brunch hosted by the Illinois Democratic County Chairs Association.

“On the public scene, the one big, ugly bill, which is now law, is deeply unpopular,” Jeffries said, referring to public opinion polls. “Because the American people don’t like the fact that they’re ripping health care away from millions of people, stealing food from the mouths of children, and all of this is being done to reward their billionaire donors with massive tax breaks while exploding the debt by more than $3 trillion.”

Health care implications

Durbin and Duckworth also met with the leaders of Springfield-area health care providers to seek guidance on the problems they anticipate facing as a result of the bill’s Medicaid cuts, including hospital closures.

“There are places that will not survive,” Durbin said. “We know they will not survive, and the impact it’s going to have on real people, on families and on the economic future of the communities that lose these facilities is going to be felt for a long, long time.”

Hospital leaders said they’re concerned about declining funding, but also patients who lose coverage and delay care, which leads to more expensive care for more serious problems in the future.

More than 330,000 Illinoisians could lose Medicaid coverage as a result of the bill while several hospitals in rural areas face closure, according to the governor’s office.

Read more: Illinois hospitals fear massive cuts under Trump domestic policy bill

The senators said they believe congressional Republicans will eventually be pressured into undoing many of the cuts in the bill, but that persuasion will have to come from their constituents. Duckworth suggested every health care office put flyers in the waiting room explaining the impacts of the bill, which she hopes would prompt patients to contact lawmakers.

Durbin said he believes favorable results for Democrats in the 2026 election could make Republicans responsive to concerns about the bill and force Congress to make changes if Democrats control the House.

“I’ve been through a lot of election cycles, and I will tell you, the House members are the most sensitive because many of them haven’t been there that long, and they’re in marginal districts,” Durbin said. “So I think this could turn out to be a movement to change that bill back, and soon.”

Durbin said that even in a scenario with Trump in the White House and Democrats controlling the House, he expects there would be bipartisan negotiations that could undo parts of the bill.

By PETER HANCOCK
& BEN SZALINSKI
Capitol News Illinois
news@capitolnewsillinois.com

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.