Judge Daniel O. Tiernan plans 8th Subcircuit run, campaign website established

Cook County Associate Judge Daniel O. Tiernan has announced plans to seek the Gamrath vacancy in the 8th Subcircuit. His campaign recently launched a campaign website in support of this effort. That's a link to the campaign website in the preceding sentence. Eventually, as we get further into the 2026 election cycle, this link will be added to a list of campaign websites in the Sidebar here on the web version of FWIW.

Tiernan entered judicial service in February 2019, when the Illinois Supreme Court appointed him to a vacancy in the old 14th Subcircuit. He was a candidate for that vacancy in the 2020 election cycle.

Like many judicial appointees over the years, Tiernan applied for associate judge, even as he was running to keep the seat to which he'd been appointed. He was one of six sitting judges who were chosen as associate judges in the 2019 selection process.

Tiernan's campaign bio notes that he attended Brother Rice High School, Moraine Valley Community College, Northern Illinois University, and Northern Illinois University College of Law. Tiernan spent 12 years in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office after graduating from law school. He then became "a Managing Partner and Principal owner in the Law Firm of Delgado and Tiernan, PC, establishing his law firm in the heart of the 8th Subcircuit," spending 10 years in this role before joining the Cook County Office of the Independent Inspector General.

Tiernan's campaign bio also points out his active support of a number of charities, including the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a childhood cancer research charity, the Niall Mellon Township Trust, which helps build houses for the homeless and schools for children, and March Forth Kenya Kids, a program that uses music to enrich the lives of children from economically challenged families.