President Joe Biden’s campaign filed paperwork on Thursday morning to appear on the March 19 Illinois Democratic primary ballot.
The Biden-Harris campaign filing with the Illinois State Board of Elections is a formality — as he will not face a major Democratic challenger in the state. The deadline to appear on the primary ballot in Illinois is Friday. And the state is just one of 57 Democratic contests.
Former President Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Biden’s campaign all filed their petitions and required paperwork to appear on the Illinois ballot at 8 a.m. on Thursday. Chris Christie filed paperwork on Friday. Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy was a notable omission.
Other Democratic candidates who filed paperwork in Illinois include Rep. Dean Philips (D-Mn.), self-help guru Marianne Williamson and businessman Frank Lozada.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who helped secure Chicago’s bid for the Democratic National Convention and serves as a national advisory board member for the Biden-Harris campaign, said in a statement that the state is “ready to celebrate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And come November, we’re headed to the polls to send them back to the White House.”
Biden formalized his candidacy in November when he filed paperwork to appear on the Nevada primary ballot. Also in November, Harris visited South Carolina to file paperwork to appear on the state’s Democratic primary ballot.
Biden is ramping up January campaign stops that will highlight the stakes of this year’s presidential election — and a likely rematch with former President Donald Trump. That’s in contrast to a less public 2023 for his campaign, in which Biden attended frequent closed-door fundraisers.
Biden will travel to Pennsylvania near Valley Forge on Friday to mark the three-year anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He’s also scheduled to travel to South Carolina on Monday to deliver remarks at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, which the campaign said “embodies the stakes for the nation at this moment.”
In 2015, nine Black congregants were shot and killed in the church by Dylann Roof, in what federal authorities said was a hate crime. He was convicted the next year.
The campaign said it will spend January bolstering its state leadership teams in battleground states — and building out staff across the country. The campaign is also scaling up a paid media program and implementing new organizing efforts.
Biden won the Illinois primary in March 2020 with 59% of the vote. He easily won the November election against Trump in the reliably blue state — 57.5% to 40.6%. With its 20 electoral votes, Illinois has the most electoral votes in the Midwest.
