DON'T VOTE FOR Darren Bailey - candidate for Governor in Illinois

Calls the City That Powers Our State a "Hellhole"
Said the Holocaust "Doesn't Even Compare" to Abortion — Then Doubled Down
Told Illinoisans to "Move On and Celebrate" Hours After the Highland Park Massacre
Sued to Put Assault Weapons Back on Illinois Streets
Wants to Ban Abortion With No Exceptions for Rape or Incest
Put COVID Theatrics Above Public Health
Blames Illinois — Not ICE — for the Raids on Illinois Neighborhoods
Tells Illinois Farmers to Wait Out Trump's Tariffs
Wouldn't Say Whether Joe Biden Won
Is Bankrolled By a Right Wing Billionaire
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Illinois Report Card

Calls the City That Powers Our State a "Hellhole"

You can't lead Illinois while insulting the 2.7 million Illinoisans who live in its largest city — the economic engine of the entire state.

In 2019, Bailey co-sponsored a resolution calling for Chicago to be cut loose from Illinois and made the 51st state, on the grounds that "the majority of residents in downstate Illinois disagree with City of Chicago residents on key issues such as gun ownership, abortion, immigration, and other policy issues." Once he was running for governor, he brushed it off as "an old resolution" and "a warning shot."
During a 2022 WGN-TV candidate appearance, Bailey labeled Chicago "a crime-ridden, corrupt, dysfunctional hellhole" — and at a debate the following week, he doubled down on the claim.
Now that he needs Chicago's votes to beat Governor Pritzker, Bailey has changed his tune — "I said something dumb, and I am certainly not too proud to admit when I'm wrong," he said in an April 2026 campaign video, after saying he had moved into an apartment on the city's Near South Side. Which Darren Bailey should Illinois believe?

A governor is supposed to fight for every corner of the state — not write off millions of its people. We deserve better.

Said the Holocaust "Doesn't Even Compare" to Abortion — Then Doubled Down

Some things should be beyond politics. The Holocaust is one of them. Not for Darren Bailey.

In a 2017 Facebook video, recorded while he was running for the Illinois House, Bailey declared that "the attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn't even compare on a shadow" of the life lost to abortion.
The Anti-Defamation League, the Illinois Legislative Jewish Caucus, and leaders of both parties denounced the comparison — including Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin, who said the Holocaust "was one of the worst atrocities in the history of humankind and any comments that minimize it have no place in our political discourse." Bailey offered no apology.
Instead he doubled down, claiming "the Jewish community themselves have told me that I'm right" — but the group he pointed to, Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois, disputed his account: "We don't know who he met with, and his comments do not reflect our position."

A man who minimizes the Holocaust to score political points has no business leading Illinois. We deserve better.

Told Illinoisans to "Move On and Celebrate" Hours After the Highland Park Massacre

On July 4, 2022, a gunman fired more than 70 rounds into the Independence Day parade in Highland Park, killing seven people and wounding more than 40. While families were still searching for their loved ones — and the shooter was still at large — Darren Bailey went live on Facebook.

Ninety minutes after the shooting began, Bailey told his 111,000 Facebook followers: "The shooter is still at large, so let's pray for justice to prevail, and then let's move on and let's celebrate — celebrate the independence of this nation." A suspect would not be arrested for more than six more hours.
After the backlash, his campaign issued a conditional apology through a spokesperson — "I apologize if in any way we diminished the pain being felt across our state today" — while also trying to shift blame to Governor Pritzker.

Seven neighbors were murdered at a parade, and Darren Bailey's instinct was to tell us to move on. We deserve better.

Sued to Put Assault Weapons Back on Illinois Streets

Six months after Highland Park, Illinois banned assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Darren Bailey's response? He went to court to tear the ban down.

Bailey led a challenge filed in White County — one of hundreds of plaintiffs — claiming the Protect Illinois Communities Act, the ban passed after the Highland Park massacre, violates the Illinois Constitution.
He is also a plaintiff in a second suit brought by the same attorney, alongside more than one thousand plaintiffs and 70 firearm dealers calling the ban unconstitutional.

Darren Bailey looked at a massacre in his own state and decided the real problem was the gun law that followed. We deserve better.

Wants to Ban Abortion With No Exceptions for Rape or Incest

Decisions about pregnancy should be made by a woman, her family, and her doctor — not by politicians. Darren Bailey wants those decisions made by the government.

Bailey has called for abortion to be banned in Illinois, with an exception only when the life of the mother is at stake. Asked in 2022 whether he would allow it in cases of rape or incest, he answered: "Personally, in my heart, I don't."
He called the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade "historic and welcomed." As an Illinois lawmaker he voted against the Reproductive Health Act, and on the day Roe fell he pledged that as Governor he would "work to remove taxpayer-funded abortion and restore parental notification in Illinois."
Even Illinois's former Republican governor, Jim Edgar, warned that most of the state's voters back abortion rights and that "if the party continues its move to the right, we will be a permanent minority party in Illinois."

Darren Bailey would force survivors of rape and incest to carry their attackers' pregnancies. We deserve better.

Put COVID Theatrics Above Public Health

In a public health emergency, we need leaders who protect their neighbors — not ones who turn a pandemic into a stage.

In May 2020, Bailey's own colleagues — Republicans and Democrats alike — voted 81 to 27 to throw him out of the day's special session of the Illinois House for refusing to wear a mask.
In April 2020, at the height of the pandemic, he sued Governor Pritzker over the statewide stay-at-home order, claiming the governor had exceeded his authority. That July a downstate judge voided Pritzker's COVID executive orders for the entire state at Bailey's request — until a Sangamon County judge vacated that ruling in December 2020.

While Illinoisans were dying, Darren Bailey was performing. We deserve better.

Blames Illinois — Not ICE — for the Raids on Illinois Neighborhoods

For months, federal agents ran Operation Midway Blitz through Chicago and its suburbs. Asked what he made of it, Darren Bailey's answer was that the real problem is Illinois.

The Chicago Sun-Times asked him about the "major concerns" over how the operation was carried out. Bailey put the blame on Illinois's own leaders: "If Gov. Pritzker and Mayor Johnson were doing their jobs and cooperating with federal law enforcement instead of working against them, we would not be in this situation." His full answer never mentions a single person the operation swept up.
In November 2025, a federal judge ordered hundreds of people released from federal custody because their arrests during Midway Blitz were possibly unlawful and in violation of a court order. A month earlier, in extending the 2022 consent decree that limits warrantless ICE arrests, the court had found that DHS and ICE violated it repeatedly.
Days into the operation, an ICE agent shot and killed Silverio Villegas González at a traffic stop in Franklin Park. DHS said the agent had been dragged "a significant distance" and suffered "severe injuries" — but body camera footage caught the agent describing his own injuries as "nothing major." Federal agents also shot Marimar Martinez in Brighton Park and routinely used chemical irritants during the operation.
Bailey wants more force, not less: he told ABC7 he supports sending the National Guard into Chicago to fight crime if that is what it takes.

A governor's first job is to protect the people who live here. Darren Bailey looked at masked agents seizing his own constituents and asked for troops. We deserve better.

Tells Illinois Farmers to Wait Out Trump's Tariffs

Illinois grows more soybeans than any other state. Trump's trade war shut its biggest customer out — and Darren Bailey's advice is to be patient.

Illinois had been selling roughly $1.4 billion a year in soybeans to China. The state's own agriculture director, Jerry Costello, said that market "has all but dried up because of Donald Trump's trade war," and in October 2025 Governor Pritzker declared an agricultural trade crisis in Illinois.
Bailey — a farmer himself — told ABC7 that Trump's tariffs on soybeans are a means to an end that will end up helping farmers, and said of the president: "I think that in time, I think that many of his policies are going to prove to be the right thing that's going on."

Illinois farmers are absorbing the cost of this trade war right now. Darren Bailey is asking them to wait it out. We deserve better.

Wouldn't Say Whether Joe Biden Won

Accepting the result of an election you lost is the price of admission to public office. Darren Bailey wouldn't pay it.

At the 2021 Illinois State Fair, Bailey repeatedly refused to say whether he believed Biden won the 2020 election, answering reporters only that "Joe Biden is our president." Asked directly whether Trump's claim that the election was stolen was true, he replied "I don't know." The Chicago Tribune reported it was not the first time he had called the outcome into question.

Illinois's governor certifies its elections. Darren Bailey still won't say who won the last presidential one. We deserve better.

Illinois Republicans at state fair take optimistic route heading into next year's 'do-or-die election' — Bailey refused to say whether Biden won (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 19, 2021; archived, original is paywalled)

Is Bankrolled By a Right Wing Billionaire

Darren Bailey's 2022 run for governor wasn't paid for by Illinois. It was paid for by one man.

Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein put more than $50 million behind Bailey — $10 million straight to his campaign, and $42 million to Dan Proft's People Who Play By The Rules PAC, which spent it running attack ads on his behalf.

When a single donor pays for an entire campaign, that donor is who the governor answers to. We deserve better.

GOP megadonor tops $50M in donations to Darren Bailey, conservative super-PAC (ABC7 Chicago, Oct. 12, 2022)

Who is Funding Darren Bailey?

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Illinois

...it's time to vote MAGA out!

Violent Crime: #22
Murder: #39/49
Firearm Death: #19
Incarceration: #13
Overall Health: #28
Life Expectancy: #21
Food Insecurity: #33
Obesity: #31/48
Women's Health: #21
Child Well-being: #20
Teen Birth Rate: #17
Maternal Mortality: #14/39
Infant Mortality: #31
Household Income: #18
Poverty Rate: #25
Public Education: #5
Voter Turnout: #31

Overall Rank: #25

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