Pritzker Wins Third Term as Illinois Governor, Beating Bailey Again

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker won a third term Tuesday, defeating Republican Darren Bailey for the second straight gubernatorial election, according to the Associated Press, which called the race at 7 p.m.

Early returns, with less than one percent of votes counted, showed Pritzker leading with 70 percent of the vote, or 13,210 votes, to Bailey’s 26.6 percent, or 5,025 votes. Independent candidate Collin Corbett drew 3.3 percent, or 632 votes.

The victory repeats the outcome of the 2022 race between the two men, when Pritzker won with 54.91 percent of the vote, or 2,253,748 votes, against Bailey’s 42.37 percent, or 1,739,095 votes. In that earlier campaign, Bailey had attacked Pritzker’s criminal justice record, singling out the SAFE-T Act, which ended cash bail and placed new limits on police use of force. Bailey had pledged to repeal the law, arguing it made it harder to prosecute accomplices to murder and opened the door to anonymous, unsworn complaints against police officers.

Pritzker’s recent national remarks

In the months before the election, Pritzker had taken an increasingly combative public stance toward the Trump administration. Appearing on ABC’s This Week on September 20, he called the administration “the most corrupt presidency that we’ve seen in our lifetimes, maybe ever in the United States,” accusing Trump and administration officials of personally profiting from their positions.

“[Trump’s] essentially stealing from the American public and certainly making money, making decisions that shouldn’t be made, so that he can put money in his pockets and he can put money in his own family’s pockets,” Pritzker said.

He argued Democrats should make corruption allegations a central midterm message, saying, “We ought to be pushing back and holding him accountable.”

In a separate appearance on CNN’s The Arena on September 9, Pritzker raised the possibility that Trump could send Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to polling places during the midterms. “And I expect that he may try to do that. They’ll be wearing camouflage uniforms. They’ll be carrying automatic weapons like they did when they invaded our city before,” he said.

Pritzker pointed to Illinois’ successful legal fight over the deployment of National Guard troops in the state, saying, “We won in the Supreme Court to prevent him from sending the National Guard into our streets. We can’t prevent him from sending CBP and ICE.” He said protecting voters’ access to the polls was a core responsibility of governors and state officials, and called for state or party organizations to accompany voters to polling locations.