Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller is facing off against Republican candidate Mike Noack and Independent write-in Ashley Banks to replace Robin Kelly as Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District representative in the U.S. House. The winner will represent a district that has long been a Democratic stronghold and stretches along the lakefront on Chicago’s South Side, including suburbs like Harvey, Dolton and Pontiac, as well as parts of Will, Kankakee, Vermilion and Iroquois counties.
Earlier this year, Miller, 61, won a crowded Democratic primary to replace Kelly, who, after more than a decade in her seat, opted to run for U.S. Senate. Kelly was one of almost two dozen incumbent Democrats not running for reelection in the House this year.
In her primary victory, Miller beat nine other contenders, including Jesse Jackson Jr. — the son of late civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson — who once represented the district for 17 years before resigning in 2012 amid a campaign finance misuse investigation that landed him in prison.
Illinois 2nd District race: Democrat Donna Miller aims to succeed Robin Kelly — and stay for years
Miller’s Republican opponent, 64-year-old Noack, is a commercial truck driver from Bonfield, a small village in Kankakee County. He has touted his status as a political outsider throughout his longshot campaign. The 2nd District has not sent a Republican to Congress since 1951, though the boundaries have been redrawn since.
“Trucker. Taxpayer. Fed Up. That’s Why He’s Running,” a slogan on Noack’s campaign website
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reads. “He’s a working man … who’s spent 32 years in Kankakee County watching the same broken promises while your property taxes climb, your healthcare costs more, and Washington couldn’t care less.”Noack declined an interview with the Tribune earlier this month.
Miller previously told the Tribune that, if she won, she planned to make it the district’s last open-seat race for years.
“My plan is to keep going as long as people want to keep me in office, and I want to make them proud of electing someone they can keep around,” she said.
A progressive in Cook County politics since 2018, Miller landed on a more moderate approach in the House race. Miller, a health care consultant who served as board chair for Planned Parenthood of Illinois, focused on improving health care and expanding access as her top priority on the campaign trail, including protecting Medicaid and Medicare.
On the county board, Miller led efforts in 2024 to fund a free countywide doula program for high-risk pregnancies and supported the county’s medical debt relief initiative. In 2023, she backed a resolution supporting federal Medicare and Medicaid coverage and sponsored a resolution supporting gender-affirming care.
Miller has raised more than $2.6 million since July 1, 2025, and had about $102,000 on hand at the end of September, according to Federal Election Commission records. Noack has not reported any fundraising.
During the primary race, Miller was criticized for receiving contributions from people affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — a pro-Israel lobbying group that supports both Democrats and Republicans — which accounted for two-thirds of the $2 million she raised through late February. The super PAC Affordable Chicago Now, which opponents have described as an AIPAC front group, spent $4.4 million to support her.
Miller has distanced herself from AIPAC’s support.
“Individual donors are the ones supporting my campaign,” she previously told the Tribune. “If it’s something else, then we’re not coordinating that on my campaign.”
Miller said she received an endorsement from former Vice President Kamala Harris last week. Both women are Howard University alumni and Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters. Also last week, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker canvassed alongside Miller in the village of Lynwood to get out the vote.
“I’m with somebody who’s gonna make a great congresswoman for the south suburbs,” Pritzker said in a social media video.
On Election Day, Miller stopped at Pullman National Historical Park to honor her great-grandfather, who she said was a Pullman porter for Chicago’s railroad sleeping cars. “The start of building the Black middle class,” she said. “Where I stand today is a testimony to them.”
“I believe in an America where everyone can afford the essentials, where healthcare is driven by medicine, not politics, and where the long march toward equality, in its many forms, moves forward, and not backwards,” she said in a video shared to social media. “But today, Washington is tearing up so much of our progress for working families and giving tax breaks to billionaires. I refuse to let them. I’m running for Congress because I am determined to rise to the challenge of this fateful moment.”
baiduhai’s Jake Sheridan and Olivia Olander contributed.