Election Day polls close for 2026 Illinois Primary: Live Updates

Khrysta Hendricks, 39, said she’s looking for candidates who will make change happen for her Pullman community.

“I want to be able to be proud of my neighborhood,” Hendricks said, explaining that she has seen her taxes significantly increase, which has resulted in no changes since she moved to the Far South Side neighborhood five years ago.

She was inspired to vote after Cleopatra Cowley, a candidate for Illinois House District 34, personally called her to wish her a happy birthday.

“I asked her, ‘What are you gonna do for our neighborhood?’ And she [answered],” Hendricks said. “That’s why I’m voting.”

David Doggett, 61, lives in another Far South Side neighborhood: Mount Greenwood. He said he’s most focused on the education system in Tuesday’s primary election.

“I’d hate to see the direction of it go south, or further south than what it is right now,” he said.

Doggett said he’s alarmed by federal education policy changes that have trickled down into the local school system and is worried that curriculum having to do with race is being removed.

As teens shuffled into the South Side YMCA in Woodlawn for afternoon programs such as swimming and basketball, voters also trickled into the lobby to cast their votes in the primary election.

Alyson Eaglin, a retired accountant, showed off her “I Voted” sticker.

“It’s important to get people to vote and understand why they’re voting,” Eaglin, 62, said. “A lot of people died for the right to vote, so I’m trying to make sure that mine is counted and my [adult] kids are counted.”

Eaglin said she supported Radiance Ward for Cook County judge and State Sen. Willie Preston for the 2nd Congressional District.

She said she’s tired of hearing people complaining about Trump “and all that’s happening in the world.”

“People don’t get that [voting] is where it starts,” Eaglin said.