With in-person campaigning frozen indefinitely by the virus, the importance of advertising and free news media coverage is most likely going to be of heightened importance going forward.
A combined more than $21 million in television ads has been spent in Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio — and in every state, Mr. Sanders spent more than Mr. Biden and his supportive super PAC combined. The priciest state, by far, is Florida, where Mr. Sanders had poured nearly $6 million and Mr. Biden spent $5.3 million, despite polling in March that has shown Mr. Biden with a large lead in the state. Mr. Sanders is the bigger spender online, too.
In the past seven days, Mr. Sanders has spent about $247,000 on Facebook ads in Illinois — nearly five times the $53,000 that Mr. Biden spent. It was a similar story across all four states, with Mr. Sanders ($106,000) far outpacing Mr. Biden (nearly $20,000) in Arizona and doubling him in Florida.
Races to watch in Illinois.
All eyes are on the presidential primary, of course, but there are also several important down-ballot races happening in Illinois today.
The most closely watched is the primary in the Third Congressional District between Representative Daniel Lipinski, a conservative Democrat, and Marie Newman, a progressive challenger. It is a second try for Ms. Newman, who is backed by the Justice Democrats and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York: She lost to Mr. Lipinski by just 2,000 votes in 2018.
The primary will be an important test of whether someone like Mr. Lipinski, who opposes abortion and voted against the Affordable Care Act, is still welcome in the Democratic Party — and conversely, whether a candidate from the party’s progressive wing can win in a district that, while solidly Democratic, leans more conservative on social issues.
Across the aisle, Republicans will be choosing their challengers against two first-term Democrats who flipped seats in 2018: Sean Casten in the Sixth District and Lauren Underwood in the 14th. And both parties are holding primary elections for an open seat in the 15th District, where Representative John Shimkus, a Republican, is retiring.