‘More listening and less talking’: Darren Bailey insists results will be
different in 2nd run for governor
[February 11, 2026]
By Ben Szalinski
The verdict on Darren Bailey’s 2022 campaign for governor was decisive.
The race was called in Gov. JB Pritzker’s favor nearly immediately after
polls closed, and Pritzker won a 12-point victory.
Less than two years later, Bailey lost a 2024 Republican primary race
for the U.S. House to incumbent Rep. Mike Bost, of Murphysboro, by about
three points.
But with a new running mate and new strategy, Bailey, the wealthy farmer
from Clay County who served in both the Illinois state Senate and House
and rose to prominence by challenging pandemic mitigations, insists the
results will be different this year.
“Our messaging needed tweaked, no doubt,” Bailey told Capitol News
Illinois in an interview. “I think that’s what’s different about this
time.”
That means talking about Chicago in a different way. He referred to the
state’s largest city as a “hellhole” in 2022 but said this time there
will be “more listening and less talking,” especially to the voters in
Chicago and the suburbs who helped deliver Pritzker an easy victory four
years ago.
But Bailey said he also thinks many of the same issues he campaigned on
in 2022 — crime in Chicago and high taxes across the state — will
resonate with voters more in 2026.
He’s the second GOP candidate for governor to sit for Capitol News
Illinois’ election podcast series. Capitol News Illinois will publish a
feature and full interview with each of the four GOP governor candidates
in the coming weeks.
Still the favorite
A recent poll by WGN and Emerson College found 34% of GOP primary voters
planned to support Bailey. While 46% of voters were undecided, no other
candidate cracked 10%. Bailey received 57% of the vote in the primary
four years ago.
Bailey isn’t the fundraising leader, however, as researcher Ted
Dabrowski and video gambling mogul Rick Heidner ended 2025 each with
more than $1 million on hand. Bailey had about $35,000 in his coffers to
end the year but has raised $81,500 from contributions of at least
$1,000 since Jan. 1, financial disclosure reports showed.
His GOP opponents have also expressed doubts that he can beat Pritzker
on the second try. Dabrowski told the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board
last month he is a better candidate than Bailey because he is from Cook
County and Bailey is a downstate farmer who struggled to resonate in the
Chicago area.
Bailey argued he has an advantage as the only candidate in the race from
outside Chicago.
“These other candidates aren’t connected at all, don’t know the problems
of rural Illinois, and so that’s where I come in,” Bailey said. “So you
take this partnership of someone who stood for rural Illinois for going
on almost eight years now, and someone who knows the business and the
politics of Chicago and Cook County, merge that together and I think
we’re going to make a wonderful team and actually represent everyone.”
Chicago strategy
Bailey is banking heavily on his running mate, Cook County Republican
Party Chair Aaron Del Mar, who hails from northwest suburban Palatine,
to help the campaign take a new approach in the Chicago area.
“He is a Cook County businessperson; he has been immersed in that
environment,” Bailey said. “So what he’s already lent to me, as far as
advice and what I would call expertise, I think, is amazing.”
Bailey received just 15.5% of the vote in Chicago and 32% in the Cook
County suburbs in 2022. He wasn’t absent from Chicago, as he frequently
held news conferences highlighting public safety issues in the city and
even lived in one of the city’s most prominent skyscrapers.
This time around, he said he has a gameplan to campaign in each ward
throughout the city and other areas that were “overlooked, missed,
didn’t know about in 2022.”
Conservative credentials
While Bailey is softening his tone in northeast Illinois, he isn’t
moderating his positions in a primary where each candidate has sought to
position themselves as the most conservative candidate.
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Former Republican nominee for governor Darren Bailey greets
supporters at Republican Day at the Illinois State Fair in
Springfield on Aug. 18, 2022. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Jerry
Nowicki)
Bailey was endorsed in 2022 at a rally in Adams County by former
President Donald Trump, whose first term had ended by then, and has said
this year he still welcomes the president’s endorsement. He’s even
proposed establishing an Illinois Department of Government Efficiency —
a spinoff from Trump’s idea that fizzled out by the end of 2025.
He’s also mirrored some of Trump’s rhetoric, saying at a recent event
that he “would love to see JB Pritzker arrested because of tyranny or a
constitutional felony.” Trump himself suggested in October that Pritzker
“should be in jail.”
Bailey told Capitol News Illinois that “Pritzker has certainly crossed
the line with his rhetoric” and “who knows where this is going to go if
JB continues to stand in defiance and harm the people of Illinois.”
There are some small areas where Bailey has staked out an opinion
different than Trump’s. During an August interview with KSDK, the NBC
affiliate in St. Louis, Bailey said immigration agents wearing masks was
“concerning” and if he were governor, “there would be no one wearing
masks.”
Bailey also said he “will not waiver” in his support for gun rights
after Trump said, “You can’t have guns; you can’t walk in with guns” in
response to the Border Patrol shooting and killing protestor Alex Pretti,
a lawful gun owner in Minneapolis.
“There’s always a lot to unpack and understand in a comment and in a
statement,” Bailey said. “And sometimes we see President Trump walk back
those statements. Maybe he says something that he doesn’t understand the
full context of but, you know, I’m a very principled person with my
beliefs, and especially with the Second Amendment.”
Illinois issues
This time around, Bailey’s campaign is placing a tighter focus on state
spending. He wants to audit all areas of state finances to find money
that he believes is being wasted to cut state spending.
He’s also called for capping annual property tax rates to not exceed a
person’s mortgage rate. The state doesn’t levy property taxes — a
function of local governments. Property taxes are a primary funding
source for schools, but Bailey said he expects the audits will free up
enough money to boost funding from the state for schools. Bailey also
said reducing unfunded mandates for schools will lower education costs.
Bailey said the state’s current evidence-based funding model for K-12
schools is also not working. While many schools remain inadequately
funded under the formula, Bailey said test scores that show many
students fail to master subjects at their grade level are further proof
the state needs to rethink its approach to education.
“We need to empower local school boards, local communities,” he said.
“We need to allow them to educate their children as they believe that
they should in local communities.”
More broadly, Bailey is pledging to lower taxes but has not specified
how. He also said the state must first give people tax relief and then
look at what priorities should be funded and how.
Should Bailey find his way to the governor’s office, he will almost
certainly have to work with a supermajority of Democrats in the
legislature. He argued he can find success in that environment because
of relationships he had during his four years in the General Assembly.
“My door’s always open … that table in the governor’s office will be
available,” Bailey said. “There will be seats.”
Brenden Moore contributed.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state
government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is
funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R.
McCormick Foundation.
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