Biography
Kwame Raoul is the Democratic Attorney General of Illinois and is seeking a third term. A former Cook County prosecutor and state senator from 2004 to 2019, he has filed or joined numerous lawsuits against Trump administration actions on funding, tariffs and immigration enforcement.[1][2][3]
Raoul was born in Chicago to Haitian immigrants.[2][3][4] He earned a bachelor's degree from DePaul University in 1987 and a law degree from Chicago-Kent College of Law.[2]
He began his career as a senior staff attorney for the City Colleges of Chicago and then worked as a prosecutor in the Cook County State's Attorney's Office.[2][3][4] He was a partner at Quarles & Brady LLP and at a second national corporate law firm.[2][4] Raoul served in the Illinois State Senate, representing the 13th District, from 2004 to 2019, a total of 14 years.[2][4] He was initially appointed to the seat that opened when Barack Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate.[3]
Raoul was first elected attorney general in 2018 and was sworn in as Illinois' 42nd Attorney General in 2019.[3][4] He began a second term on January 9, 2023.[4] In his current term the Sun-Times reports that he has joined lawsuits over the Trump administration's tariffs, cuts to public health grants and access to mail-in ballots, among other issues.[3]
- 1.Illinois Attorney General election, 2026 · Ballotpedia · 2026-10-19 Reference
- 2.Kwame Raoul · Ballotpedia Reference
- 3.What to know about the race for Illinois attorney general · Chicago Sun-Times / WBEZ · 2026-10-01 News report
- 4.Biography - Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul · Illinois Attorney General's Office · 2026-10-19 Official record
Researched from the cited sources on 2026-10-21.
On the ballot
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