Representative Robin Kelly of Illinois, a former mental health counselor and onetime Democratic state party chair, is one of three leading candidates in the state’s Democratic primary for Senate on Tuesday.
Here are five things to know about Ms. Kelly, 69, of Chicago’s southern suburbs.
1. She grew up in New York City. The daughter of a grocer and a postal worker, Ms. Kelly was born in Harlem and went to Rhodes Preparatory School, a private high school in Midtown Manhattan that later closed. She moved to the Midwest to attend Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.
2. She spent years as a mental health counselor. At Bradley, Ms. Kelly received a B.A. in psychology and an M.A. in counseling. One of her first jobs was as at a child abuse prevention center; she worked as a counselor for a decade before entering politics.
3. She replaced Jesse L. Jackson Jr. when she arrived in the House. Ms. Kelly, who had spent four years in the State Legislature, was first elected to Congress in a 2013 special election, filling Mr. Jackson’s seat after he was swept out of office by a corruption scandal. Mr. Jackson had held the seat for 17 years. Ms. Kelly ran on a gun-safety platform and pledged to restore her constituents’ trust in their leaders. (Mr. Jackson, who served 17 months in prison after he pleaded guilty in a corruption case, is running this year to return to the House.)
4. She has clashed with JB Pritzker, the state’s billionaire Democratic governor. In 2022, Mr. Pritzker waged a pressure campaign to oust Ms. Kelly from her role as the state’s Democratic Party chair. Ultimately Ms. Kelly, who served in the role for a year, removed herself from contention to serve another term. (Mr. Pritzker had also supported another candidate during Ms. Kelly’s first bid for the chair.)
5. She is endorsed by the Congressional Black Caucus. Ms. Kelly is considered a long shot in the primary. And some Democrats are concerned that Ms. Kelly and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, who are both Black, might split the Black vote, preventing one of them from becoming the sixth Black woman in U.S. history to serve in the Senate. Representative Yvette Clarke of New York, a Democrat and the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, criticized Mr. Pritzker for spending heavily in support of Ms. Stratton, saying in a statement that a “sitting governor shouldn’t be heavy-handing the race.”
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