Illinois governor race: Democrat JB Pritzker elected to third term

Democrat JB Pritzker was elected to a third term as Illinois governor Tuesday, handily defeating Republican Darren Bailey, whose poorly funded rematch was unable to escape the forces behind his loss four years ago — his support for President Donald Trump and his conservative Christian views on social issues.

Pritzker’s reelection, which was called by The Associated Press at 7:01 p.m., now sets the stage for the next possible progression of the Democratic billionaire and entrepreneur’s political career — a run for the 2028 nomination for the White House.

Also running was Collin Corbett, a former Republican political operative, who mounted an independent campaign.

Pritzker becomes the first Democratic governor ever elected to three terms. Republican Gov. Jim Thompson won a record four terms spanning 1977 to 1991. Pritzker’s victory represents the continued deterioration of the state’s Republican Party as a competitive political force in Illinois.

It also marked the third consecutive election loss for Bailey, a downstate farmer and former state lawmaker. His two unsuccessful bids for governor were sandwiched around a 2024 primary loss in his challenge to veteran GOP U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro.

For Pritzker, who now has spent more than $400 million of his personal wealth on his three campaigns for governor — including more than $50 million in the current one — the strategy for his rematch against Bailey was largely to rerun his victory playbook from the race he won by about 13 percentage points in 2022.

Bailey’s initial bid for governor four years ago was backed by more than $50 million from Richard Uihlein, the founder of the Uline office supply company. But Bailey got only $6,900 from the billionaire conservative donor this time around, a reflection of softened financial support for his candidacy in a year when Republicans focused money on congressional contests nationwide amid voter unease over economic policies under Trump.

Pritzker never acknowledged a potential presidential bid even as he boosted his national footprint by dispensing some of his $4.2 billion net worth — a Forbes estimate — with millions of dollars to Democratic candidates and causes across the country, while also traveling to speak at various state party functions influential in getting him name recognition.

Helping to give Pritzker a national platform was his unrelenting, vehement attacks on Trump, who he labeled a “racist, misogynist, xenophobic, anti-immigrant” president while the administration pressed Operation Midway Blitz, a deadly and chaotic street policy of deploying federal immigration enforcement agents into the Chicago area that began more than a year ago.

Trump was in many ways the centerpiece of Pritzker’s campaign. It was long on the two-term incumbent’s efforts to criticize the president and link him to Bailey — and also on touting his own actions to defend Illinois against administration policies regarding healthcare, voting rights and immigration — but short on offering a definitive third-term agenda.

In contrast, Bailey, who had avidly courted and won Trump’s endorsement in 2022, sought to publicly distance himself from the president four years later. Still, Trump endorsed his second bid for governor, and Bailey said he welcomed it. He even defended the administration’s immigrant enforcement efforts and blamed it on the state’s sanctuary policies.

And despite his agricultural background and the effects of Trump’s tariffs policies and his war against Iran have had on farm production and sales, Bailey defended the president’s actions as “short-term pain for a long-term gain.”

It was Trump who encouraged Bailey to make the race after a family tragedy almost ended it before it really began. A helicopter crash in Montana in October of last year killed his son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren. Another grandchild survived. In a letter of condolence, Trump urged Bailey to “continue to Fight! Fight! Fight! for your beloved state in honor of your beautiful family.”

In his second gubernatorial bid, Bailey sought to soften his view of Chicago, which he had derided as a “hellhole” in his first campaign. He lived in an apartment in the South Loop, though he declined to identify the owner, and vowed that he would spend more time in the city and suburbs in an effort to woo key suburban voters whom he had alienated four years ago. He also dispatched his running mate, Aaron Del Mar of Palatine, to act as a northern Illinois liaison for his campaign.

But besides apologizing over his previous attitude toward Chicago and filming some cringeworthy visits to city sights with Del Mar acting as a tour guide, Bailey continued to spend significant time in his downstate base to try to goose GOP turnout there, despite the overwhelming number of residents in the city and collar counties who decide the fate of statewide campaigns.

Pritzker ran a consistent set of commercials, including several adopting the 2022 theme he used against the Republican as being “too extreme” for Illinois.

Without significant ad funding, Bailey had virtually no presence on TV except for news interviews, relying mostly on social media videos to make his pitch.

But his messages were often mixed. Bailey vowed to suspend the state’s gas tax increase by executive order, though Illinois governors don’t have the power. He said he would make tollways free but acknowledged that bondholders were still owed $7 billion and the motor fuel tax would have to be tapped to pay for ongoing tollway repair and maintenance. He proposed a plan for a Chicago Bears stadium only to acknowledge it was just a “start” and said the team’s mascot was his favorite player.

Rather than propose solutions to issues like reducing property taxes or the state’s pension debt, Bailey proposed to have “conversations” with interested parties. He at various times pledged to repeal, then later modify, the state’s cashless bail law.

When discussing curriculum at the private Christian school he co-founded that teaches that dinosaurs and humans walked the earth at the same time, Bailey was asked if he believed that to be the case. “Were you there?” he responded to a reporter.

Bailey sought to label Pritzker’s criticisms as a distraction from the Democratic governor’s own record. But Pritzker touted his experience in the office including bringing fiscal stability and upgraded credit ratings for state government, enacting a first-term increase in the state’s minimum wage, increasing education funding, and putting in place protections for women’s health care including enshrining a right to abortion in state law.

Bailey had sought to downplay his evangelical Christian beliefs on social issues such as opposition to abortion and gay rights that had played a strong role in losing suburban support in 2022.

But on the eve of the election, he and his wife, Cindy, asked social media supporters “to join us for a special day of prayer and fasting as we prepare for Election Day.”

“From Chicago to Cairo, may prayers rise from every corner of our state! One state. 102 counties. Thousands of voices. One mighty God,” Cindy Bailey wrote, with a praying hands emoji, on Facebook.

As he stood outside Daley Plaza on the eve of the election delivering a late pitch to voters, Bailey effectively made it clear that Pritzker’s relentless TV attacks had damaged his campaign.

“I’m not going down to Springfield to be an extremist,” he said.

Tribune reporters Rebecca Johnson and Michael Hawthorne contributed.

rpearson@chicagotribune.com