Pope Leo XIV has submitted a mail-in ballot in Chicago for the United States midterm elections, the Vatican confirmed on Friday, 30 October. The confirmation makes the Chicago-born Pope the first sitting pope known to have voted in a United States general election. Voting takes place on Tuesday, 3 November, and the Vatican statement gave no detail about which candidates or measures he supported.
The Holy See Press Office said the ballot was submitted in Chicago in line with a long practice of civic participation. It quoted the view that citizens have both a right and a duty to take part in democratic processes. Leo, 71, was born in Chicago as Robert Francis Prevost and was elected in May 2025 as the first American-born head of the Roman Catholic Church, a church with about 1.4 billion members around the world.
How the Pope cast his ballot
Leo remains registered to vote in Illinois at an address in New Lenox, a suburb southwest of Chicago where his brother John lives. Records from the Will County Clerk show he requested a mail ballot on 3 October. The Vatican said he voted under his birth name, Robert Francis Prevost, and that the ballot was submitted from Chicago while he was at the Vatican. Officials did not release a copy of the ballot, and the choices on it remain private.
His voting history goes back well before his election as pontiff. The Vatican said he exercised his right to vote as a United States citizen whenever he was eligible to do so, including during more than 20 years living in Peru. Illinois election records cited by news outlets show he took part in earlier general elections and in primary elections in both parties before he became Pope. His ballot this year is the first he has cast while leading the church.
Why the Pope vote drew attention
British historian Michael Walsh, who has written books on the papacy, told CNN he believes Leo is the first pope ever to vote in a democratic, secular election. Past popes were citizens of states that did not hold elections of this kind, or they held office before modern democratic voting took its present form. Leo holds both American and Peruvian citizenship, and the Holy See itself does not hold political elections, so his ballot rests on his United States citizenship rather than on his office.
Reaction in the United States focused on the fact of the vote rather than on any candidate. News reports noted that the Vatican framed the act as civic participation, not as an endorsement. Catholic commentators pointed to the statement about the duty of citizens, while political analysts noted that a pope voting in a midterm election had no precedent to compare with. The Vatican gave no further comment on the ballot beyond the statement issued on Friday.
What Illinois voters decide on 3 November
The Illinois ballot includes a race for the United States Senate seat being vacated by Senator Dick Durbin, who is retiring, and a contest for governor in which Governor JB Pritzker is seeking re-election. Across the country, voters will decide all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate, along with governorships in 36 states. Control of both chambers of Congress is at stake, and President Donald Trump has campaigned for Republican candidates seeking to hold their majorities.
Illinois is a strongly Democratic state, and the Senate race there has drawn national attention because Durbin has held the seat for decades. Pritzker has been a prominent critic of the Trump administration, and his re-election bid is one of the most watched governor races in the country. Turnout in midterm elections is usually lower than in presidential years, and both parties have spent heavily on get-out-the-vote efforts in the final days of the campaign.
For Leo, the ballot closes a personal circle that began in Chicago, where he was born on 14 September 1955. He served for years as a missionary and bishop in Peru, led the Augustinian order, and worked in the Vatican before the cardinals chose him to succeed Pope Francis in May 2025. The Vatican statement on Friday presented the vote as a continuation of a practice he followed through those years, and it left the contents of the ballot, as with any private vote, undisclosed.