Injustice Watch out with Election Guide for the judicial primary -- and IW is worried about the dearth of candidates, too

In case you haven't yet seen it, Injustice Watch is out with its 2026 Cook County Judicial Election Guide. Injustice Watch has the resources to unearth interesting facts about our brothers and sisters seeking election to the bench, and it has done so once again. It is certainly worth your time to take a gander.

In addition, Dan Hinkel and David Jackson have an article up on Injustice Watch, "No contest: Cook County judicial primary elections draw dwindling field of candidates."

FWIW readers will note that I have carped about this phenomenon on multiple occasions here, although I have not claimed to know precisely why fewer and fewer lawyers are willing to enter the lists and run for judge. I have advanced several hypotheses. FWIW readers may also recall that Albert J. Klumpp, a PhD in public policy analysis with a national reputation for expertise on judicial races, recently addressed this question in the November-December 2025 issue of the CBA Record, "Where Have All the Candidates Gone? A Concerning Trend in Cook County Judicial Elections." As Dr. Klumpp noted in the article, the decline in the number of Cook County judicial candidates has become more glaringly obvious in recent election cycles, but it is part of a long-term pattern, ongoing since a high-water mark in 1998. Dr. Klumpp will correct me if I misstate his position, but I read his recent article as considering a number of posible explanations for this, without seizing on one or more as the most important.

In their new article, Messrs. Hinkel and Jackson look at some of the same possible explanations that Dr. Klumpp and I have offered (with varying emphases, no doubt), but stake no claim as to which explanation is, or which explanations are, dispositive.

But the important part is that we're all asking the same questions. Because this is important.