Adam Delgado, a Democrat and Sterling High School alum, has announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.

He is among a field of a dozen candidates who’ve declared they are running for Durbin’s seat in the 2026 Democratic primary. Others are Jump Shepherd; Kevin Ryan; and U.S. Reps Robin Kelly, 2nd District, and Raja Krishnamoorthi, 8th District.

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An Air Force and Reserves veteran, Delgado is running on a platform focused on protecting veterans’ benefits and preserving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid from federal budget cuts.

He is calling for stronger government accountability, including mandatory polygraph tests for top officials and ethics reforms for the Supreme Court. Other priorities include safeguarding whistleblowers, enforcing controlled immigration policies and reducing the national debt.

Delgado said he was inspired by his father and brothers to join his family’s legacy of public service, including nine years as a Chicago police officer and over 20 years as a federal agent.

“My father served in the tail end of World War II. He was a no-nonsense guy, lived through the Depression,” Delgado said. “I’m glad that he was harder on us to make us more disciplined, to serve our country, to be a productive member of society, and five of my brothers also served in the military, and the one brother that did not join, he was a Chicago police officer, just like I was.”

Protecting veterans’ benefits, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

One of Delgado’s top campaign priorities is protecting veteran’s benefits, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which he said will be negatively impacted by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R.1) in 2027.

Supporters of H.R.1 argue it benefits veterans by making Trump-era tax cuts permanent and preserving key programs, such as the VA Home Loan Program and the GI Bill. However, critics point to provisions such as Medicaid work requirements and funding cuts, which they say could harm veterans who depend on assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Medicaid.

“I want to make sure that people get the benefits that they paid into the program for,” Delgado said. “I know that everyone is concerned about the cost of living, the cost of groceries, things are only going to get worse unless we stand up right now and take steps to try and counter some of the damage that’s being done.”

Although Republicans established the Rural Health Transformation Program, Delgado said it is intended to offset significant cuts that rural hospitals are expected to endure as a result of legislation that slashes $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over the next decade, primarily from Medicaid. Those sweeping cuts are expected to leave 10 million more people without health insurance in 2034.

“The bottom line is, they took out $150 billion total, and now they’re going to put $50 billion back in,” Delgado said. “So there’s still a deficit of $100 billion that won’t be there. So they got to make the cut somewhere.”

Stronger government accountability

Delgado believes top government officials should undergo the same scrutiny he faced as a former agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

“When you apply to work for either the ATF, the DEA or the FBI, as a special agent, you got to take a background investigation in-depth and then a polygraph examination, so that you can handle classified information,” Delgado said. “Why would we not have that same standard for the top four leadership positions in the United States: President, Vice President, Speaker of the House and President of the Senate... and also for ambassadors, so that hopefully, never again in our country will we have a convicted felon in the White House or representing us abroad.”

Delgado acknowledged that implementing such a requirement would likely demand a constitutional amendment. Still, he hopes members of Congress will step up to address what he sees as a growing lack of accountability among high-ranking officials.

Despite debate over their reliability and inadmissibility in court, Delgado said he has taken multiple polygraph tests over his career and considers them a valuable investigative tool. While he does not claim polygraphs are foolproof, he believes they can expose deception and prompt important disclosures.

“We may not know exactly what a person is lying about, but we know they’re being deceptive,” Delgado said, sharing an example from his military career in which a polygraph helped uncover a past trauma that had gone unreported.

Although he has not yet consulted constitutional scholars about the feasibility of his proposal, Delgado said he believes change is possible if enough lawmakers are willing to act.

Supreme Court term limits and ethics reform

Delgado acknowledged that term limits for justices would also likely require a constitutional amendment, but said his strategy would focus on appealing to lawmakers’ personal ethics.

He cited his own experience with strict ethics standards as a federal agent.

Asked whether he supports existing legislation like the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act, Delgado said it does not go far enough.

“Everything I’ve seen thus far... the government has given the Supreme Court the authority to police themselves,” Delgado said. “They’ve proven that they’re not going to do the right thing.”

If legislative efforts fail, he said he would support a constitutional convention.

“Absolutely. Things have to change,” Delgado said. “You can’t have judges flying around on private jets that belong to billionaires that have cases before the Supreme Court.”

Whistleblower protections and accountability

Delgado said whistleblowers are often isolated and punished for coming forward. He wants stronger protections for whistleblowers and accountability for supervisors who tolerate misconduct.

“You are on an island by yourself. You are alienated, retaliated against, and it’s a very uncomfortable and expensive process,” Delgado said. “If there’s some legitimate allegations there, make sure that the whistleblower is honored instead of shunned, that the person is made whole, and that the supervisors who allow the misconduct to go on will lose some immunity and have to pay... because that’s the only way that government agencies are going to start taking this stuff seriously.”

Reproductive rights

Delgado supports abortion rights and said he hopes Americans can engage the issue honestly, without hypocrisy.

“People need to be honest with each other and honest with themselves... because right now, there is a lot of hypocrisy in our country,” he said.

Immigration

Delgado supports controlled immigration and pointed to a bipartisan framework introduced by Sen. James Lankford as a strong starting point.

“That was a bipartisan agreement,” Delgado said. “But President Trump had called the GOP and said, ‘Shoot this thing down so that we have something to campaign about during the election.’”

He criticized political gridlock while communities face real fear and disruption.

“It’s a sad thing when an American veteran of Mexican-American descent has to walk down the street... with a passport, with his retired military ID... to prove that I’m an American citizen,” he said.

The primary election is set for March 17, and the general election is Nov. 3, 2026.