Paul Simon Democratic Dick Durbin Democratic The 1996 United States Senate election in Illinois took place on November 5, 1996.

Senator Paul Simon chose to retire rather than seek a third term in office.

In the Democratic primary, U.S. Representative Dick Durbin emerged victorious, while state representative Al Salvi won the Republican primary.

Though the election was initially anticipated to be close, Durbin ended up defeating Salvi by a comfortable double-digit margin of victory, allowing him to win what would be the first of several terms in the Senate.

[1] For the general election, turnout was 63.79%, with 4,250,722 votes cast.