In the lead-up to last Tuesday’s general election, both presidential candidates made a point of visiting religious congregations and meeting with faith leaders — a time-honored part of politicking aimed at courting voters in the flocks.
In Illinois, political candidates and campaign committees also intersect with religion by routinely giving money to churches and other religious charities — totaling about $650,000 collectively this year and in 2023 in the form of donations, event sponsorships and other payments, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of Illinois State Board of Elections records.
Roughly two-thirds of that total — about $420,000 — went to schools, churches, and other charitable endeavors and causes identifying as Catholic.
More than $180,000 of that Catholic tally went to Misericordia, a North Side organization long run by Sister Rosemary Connelly, that serves adults and kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Of that, $150,000 came from a 2023 donation from the campaign fund of retired Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, a founder of Special Olympics and the wife of convicted ex-Chicago Ald. Edward M. Burke.
More than $200,000 was spent on churches of various denominations this year and last, with St. Bruno Catholic Church one of the biggest recipients at $18,200 — all of which was recorded as donations from Ed Burke’s campaign funds, including four donations totaling $800 made in September leading up to the start of his prison term following his conviction on corruption charges.
Nearly $16,000 was given by campaigns to Victory Apostolic Church in Matteson, more than $6,000 of which came from the campaign fund of the south suburb’s mayor, Sheila Chalmers-Currin.
Victory Apostolic Church in Matteson.
One of the largest recent donations to an Illinois church was $10,000, given in March to Liberty Christian Church in downstate Liberty by the campaign fund of a former Adams County sheriff.
Baptist churches and other groups were given more than $60,000 in Illinois campaign money in 2023 and to date this year. Campaign committees benefiting Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle paid Monumental Baptist Church at 729 E. Oakwood Blvd. $6,875 — all for space rental.
“We do our ward meetings out of there,” a spokesman for Preckwinkle, who doubles as the head of the Cook County Democratic Party, says of the historic South Side building.
Gov. JB Pritzker’s campaign donated $2,500 in April to a Baptist church in the East St. Louis area, one of at least five payments to religious congregations this year by the JB for Governor campaign committee, including $5,000 in the spring to the African Methodist Episcopal Church on the South Side.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s campaign committee spent $5,500 on churches in 2023 and 2024, including $3,700 for “GospelFest” for the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church on the South Side last year, and $1,200 at the Lighthouse Church of All Nations in Alsip this year for what’s described in elections records as “event production.”
Jewish houses of worship and other Jewish groups and charities were given more $30,000 in campaign money, while Muslim organizations were given more than $4,500, with $1,000 of that coming from the Bridgeview Active Party to which the south suburb’s mayor, Steve Landek, belongs.
More than $100,000 went to religious schools in 2024 and 2023, the vast majority of them Catholic, with more than $17,000 of that total going to the all-girls Mother McAuley Liberal Arts High School on the Far Southwest Side.
The largest recent expenditure to Mother McAuley was $4,000 spent on a school event by the campaign fund for judicial candidate Bridget Duignan, now a Cook County judge.
A campaign committee that raises and spends money to help sitting judges win their retention races in Cook County made nine donations this year totaling $3,100 to eight churches on the South and West sides and in Markham.
Experts say campaigns give money to faith groups for a variety of reasons — with some politicians aiming to help institutions that help their communities spiritually or through social services, and some simply trying to curry favor with a pool of potential voters, even as America is increasingly secularized with fewer people regularly participating in organized religion.
“You fish where the fish are,” says one local elected official whose campaign funds have donated to religious groups, and spoke on the condition he not be quoted by name.
David Brockman, a scholar for the Baker Institute’s Religion and Public Policy Program at Rice University in Houston, says this is “the first time I’ve heard of monies flowing that way,” observing that such giving “kind of resembles the politicians’ visits to a church or synagogue or mosque during worship service, which is a common occurrence.”
“If it’s not altruistic,” Brockman said, some political figures may view such giving of campaign cash as a “kind of investment, in a sense.”
Studies show regular church-goers are more likely to vote, and in this year’s presidential election evangelical Christians were believed to be a potent force for Donald Trump.
Beyond state and local campaign funds, federal candidates also give to religious groups. U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, a Democrat representing the north and northwest suburbs, made two donations totaling $500 to Waukegan churches in 2023, according to the Federal Election Commission.
A campaign fund for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, donated $500 this year to Old St. Patrick’s Church in the West Loop, a congregation that’s one of the largest recipients of campaign money over the years — roughly $175,000.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s campaign fund paid an affiliate of the First United Methodist Church more than $40,000 over the last two years, for office space rental at the temple building in the Loop.
Campaign funds in Illinois are generally allowed to pay or donate to faith groups, but tax-exempt churches and many other religious groups are barred from giving to political campaigns, under Internal Revenue Service rules.
But some still do. Election records show the New Life Covenant Church at 1021 E. 78th St. gave a $5,000 contribution to Chicago Ald. Michelle Harris’ campaign fund in May.
Harris didn’t return calls, but a church administrator says, “In reviewing the donation we’ve realized that this donation was made from the wrong account” and “is currently being resolved on our end.”