Maria Pappas, Cook County treasurer and Chicago resident, became the ninth candidate in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate when she entered the race last week.

Pappas' major focus during her campaign is to get more federal funding for Illinois, said spokesman David Byrnes.

"Illinois only gets 77 cents back from every dollar that we send to Washington," Byrnes said. "That needs to change."

According to Pappas' Web site, the amount of money Illinois gets back from every dollar ranks 44th among the states.

Pappas is currently touring the state for her campaign.

Byrnes said Pappas wants to focus the campaign on all of Illinois and not just the Chicago area.

Jim O'Connor, spokesman for Democratic candidate Blair Hull, said he welcomes any new candidate in the race, because more candidates mean more discussion and ultimately a better choice for the voters of Illinois.

Samantha Anderson, spokeswoman for Democratic candidate Gery Chico, said Pappas' entrance will not affect their campaign's overall strategy, but it could divide more of the Chicago votes.

Chris Mather, spokeswoman for Democratic candidate Dan Hynes, said she did not see Pappas having an effect from her campaign's perspective.

"No matter who is in the race, we have a game plan and we are sticking to it," said Mather. "We know how many votes we need to get for the election."

It had been speculated for a while that Pappas would enter the race.

Byrnes said Pappas wanted to concentrate on working on the most recent tax collection period, which ended in October.

He said Pappas thought it was a good time for her to announce her candidacy after the tax collection period.

— Dan Farnham