09/03/2025
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Illinois Republican Primary for 2026 governor wide open
SPRINGFIELD – The Republican primary for Governor of Illinois in 2026 is wide open, according to the latest edition of The Illinois Poll, with ‘undecided receiving a wide majority from respondents to the poll.
The poll, taken before 2022 GOP Governor nominee Aaron Bailey publicly stated his potential interest in running again, shows plenty of room for more candidates.
The results are part of the latest Illinois Poll. It is a semi-monthly survey conducted since 2001 by Victory Research, an independent polling company based in Chicago. The poll of 800 likely GOP primary voters was conducted by live callers between August 19th-22nd. The margin of error for the poll is 3.45 percent. Respondents answered using land lines (231) and cell phones (569). At the time of the poll, Victory Research had no polling client in the Republican primary for Governor. www.politicsillinois.com. .
At the time of the poll, seven candidates had either openly announced, or were publicly known to be contemplating a candidacy for Governor. Of the seven, Cook County Republican Chairman Aaron Del Mar had a slight lead in the poll, with 9.6 percent. DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick was second in the poll with 8.9 percent, and Ted Dabrowski, President of conservative think tank Wire Points, came in third with 8.1 percent. Two candidates, Joe Severino, a former candidate for Congress, and Max Solomon, a 2022 candidate for US Senate, registered less than one percent at 0.3 percent and 0.1 percent respectively. Two newcomers to Illinois politics, Jon Blackburn and John Thomas, had no respondents choose them.
Del Mar, also the Palatine Township GOP Committeeman and a 2022 Lt Governor candidate, was strongest in his native Cook County, with 19.7 percent, according to the poll. Sheriff Mendrick was in first place in the Collar Counties with 18.3 percent, while Dabrowski led in northwest Illinois with 9.3 percent. In northwest, central and southern Illinois, “undecided” garnered more than 80 percent of the vote with 83.2 percent, 89.1 percent, and 82.8 percent respectively.
