WASHINGTON — Darren Bailey has won the Republican nomination for governor in Tuesday’s primary election, setting up a familiar face-off with Democrat JB Pritzker in the race for the governor’s office in November.
Pritkzer, who is seeking reelection unopposed, named Christian Mitchell as his running mate. Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton is running for U.S. Senate.
The Associated Press called the race shortly after 8:30 p.m. Tuesday. Results won’t be certified for two weeks after Election Day.
Bailey secured 147,736 votes. Challengers Ted Dabrowksi earned 94,106 votes, compared to James Mendrick with 29,232 votes and Rick Heidner with 26,245 votes.
Bailey, a farmer from southern Illinois and the party’s 2022 nominee, claimed victory Tuesday night in a four-way primary for the GOP nomination, defeating Ted Dabrowski, former head of the conservative policy website Wirepoints.
DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick and businessman Rick Heidner, who spent more than $1 million of his own money on the campaign, each had under 10% when the race was called.
Four years ago, Bailey won the nomination with 57% of the vote in a crowded race that also featured Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin and venture capitalist Jesse Sullivan.
In that campaign, Bailey had the endorsement of then-former President Donald Trump. But many observers noted he also had backhanded help from the Pritzker campaign, which viewed him as a weaker candidate than the better-financed Irvin.
Pritzker funded ads that, on the surface, appeared to criticize Bailey but which subtly targeted the GOP’s conservative base by asserting that Bailey was “too conservative” for Illinois.
Bailey went on to lose the general election, 55% to 42%, after Pritzker swept Cook County and most of the collar counties
Two years later, he tried unsuccessfully to unseat fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost in the 12th District, narrowly losing that primary by less than 3,000 votes.
Bailey announced his plan to run for governor again in September, vowing to run a different campaign that would focus more on Chicago and its suburbs. That started with choosing Cook County Republican Party Chairman Aaron Del Mar as his running mate.
“Aaron definitely brings a whole bunch of stuff to the table,” Crystal Bell, a Bailey supporter from Beardstown, said in an interview Tuesday night. “The dynamic duo, is what I call them.”
Barely a month after announcing his candidacy, however, Bailey suffered a family tragedy that could have ended his campaign when his son Zacharay, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren were all killed in a helicopter crash in Montana.
But Bailey chose to stay in the race, “not for politics, but for every family trying to make it in a state that’s lost its way, for every parent who dreams of a better future for their children and for every Illinoisan who knows that we can do better.”
Although Trump did not issue a formal endorsement this time around, Bailey made it clear that he would model his administration after the current president, vowing to set up a DOGE-like commission to root out waste and inefficiency in state government.
Speaking to a ballroom full of supporters in Springfield Tuesday night, Bailey reiterated his pro-Trump message.
Dabrowski, meanwhile, campaigned on the idea that he was the more electable candidate, arguing that Bailey’s poor performance in the suburbs four years ago was an omen that he could never win a statewide general election.
“Victory runs through the suburbs,” Dabrowski said in his final TV ad of the primary campaign. “Darren Bailey is a disaster in the suburbs. It’s why Pritzker wanted to run against him four years ago and does again.”
But Sheldon Schulte, a Bailey supporter from Vandalia, said Tuesday that if more southern Illinois Republicans had turned out in 2022, Bailey would have won the race.
“People do not get out and turn out,” he said in an interview. “I mean, all we needed was 15% more people in southern Illinois to show up and we would have won.”
Pritzker seeks a third term as governor
Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune who was unopposed in his primary, is the first governor to seek a third term since the 1980s.
One of President Donald Trump’s most vocal critics, Pritzker used his victory speech to tout his efforts to oppose the aggressive federal immigration crackdown in Chicago last year. He criticized Republicans’ agenda, called Trump’s presidency an “unmitigated disaster” and vowing to help Democrats across Illinois win in November.
“This is the fight of our lives,” he told supporters at a downtown Chicago hotel. “Everything we care about is under siege from Washington.”
Pritzker also made digs at Republican candidate Darren Bailey, a former state senator whom he handily defeated in 2022.
Bailey, among four Republicans who sought for the nomination, said he was now doing things differently. For one, he focused more on Chicago voters by choosing running mate Aaron Del Mar, who leads the Republican Party in Cook County.
Bailey criticized Pritzker’s leadership, including blaming him for rising costs, saying, “He’s just another billionaire who has never once felt the pain he’s inflicted.”
Also in the Republican primary were Ted Dabrowski, a real estate developer; Rick Heidner, a video gambling magnate; and DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick.
Capitol News Illinois contributed. Check back for updates.