Darren Bailey Controversy Abortion Illinois

Darren Bailey Said the Holocaust 'Doesn't Even Compare' to Abortion. When Jewish Groups Objected, He Said Jewish Leaders Told Him He Was Right. They Said That Wasn't True.

A 2017 video resurfaced in 2022 showing Bailey minimizing the Holocaust. The ADL and leaders of both parties denounced it. Bailey's response was to claim Jewish community support — and the group he named publicly contradicted him.

MAGA Report Cards · Aug 07, 2026

Darren Bailey Said the Holocaust 'Doesn't Even Compare' to Abortion. When Jewish Groups Objected, He Said Jewish Leaders Told Him He Was Right. They Said That Wasn't True.

In 2017, while running for the Illinois House, Darren Bailey recorded a Facebook video about abortion. In it he said:

"The attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn't even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion since its legalization."

The video resurfaced on August 1, 2022, while he was the Republican nominee for governor of Illinois.

Who objected

The condemnation was not confined to one party.

The Anti-Defamation League's Midwest chapter objected. So did the Illinois Legislative Jewish Caucus, Planned Parenthood of Illinois, and Gov. JB Pritzker's campaign.

And so did the leader of Bailey's own party in the Illinois House. Republican Leader Jim Durkin 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 did not apologize.

The claim that fell apart

Instead, he doubled down, saying that "the Jewish community themselves have told me that I'm right."

That is a specific factual claim, and it was checkable. Bailey pointed to Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois.

Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois disputed his account directly:

"We don't know who he met with, and his comments do not reflect our position."

This is the part that separates the episode from an ordinary gaffe. The original remark was a comparison people can argue about — offensive to many, sincerely held by him. The follow-up was different. Confronted with criticism, Bailey asserted that a Jewish organization had endorsed his view, and the organization said publicly that it had not.

Why we're writing it down now

Bailey is on the ballot again, running a campaign built on affordability that keeps its older positions in the room but off the platform.

This week his running mate, Aaron Del Mar, told a Springfield rally hosted by an anti-abortion lobbying group that Pritzker is "willing to murder millions of babies" and that people come to Illinois to "sin against God" — three weeks after telling WBEZ that claims they'd restrict abortion access were "a flat-out lie."

The Holocaust remark came from the same place: the belief that abortion is a mass atrocity on a historical scale. Bailey has never withdrawn the comparison. In May of this year he told a Christian conference in Decatur, "Anyone who knows me knows there's no one here more pro-life or more pro Second Amendment than I."

He is entitled to that conviction. Voters are entitled to know he holds it while his campaign literature doesn't mention abortion at all.

What a governor does with this

A governor speaks for the state after antisemitic incidents, sets the tone on Holocaust education in schools, and represents every Illinoisan — including the Jewish Illinoisans whose legislative caucus told him this was wrong — in moments that call for moral seriousness.

The test isn't whether a candidate has ever said something wrong. It's what he does when he's told he has. Bailey was told — by the ADL, by a Jewish legislative caucus, by his own party's House leader. His response was to claim an endorsement that the named organization denied.

Illinoisans deserve a governor who can be corrected. We deserve better.