Republican nominee for governor Darren Bailey treaded water in the opening stretch of his rematch against Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker in the Nov. 3 general election, raising about $1.33 million for his campaign fund while spending more than $1.28 million in the three full months since winning the March 17 GOP primary, state campaign finance records show.
Still, Bailey’s fundraising haul was orders of magnitude larger than other Republican statewide candidates in the most recent quarter. That includes U.S. Senate nominee Don Tracy, the former state party chairman who is facing Pritzker’s two-time running mate, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, in the race to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.
Bailey, a conservative farmer and former lawmaker from southern Illinois, began July with a little less than $128,000 in his campaign bank account, compared with more than $3.1 million remaining in the JB for Governor campaign fund, according to quarterly campaign finance disclosures filed Wednesday with the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Lacking the megadonor backing he had in the 2022 race, which he lost by 13 percentage points, Bailey so far has relied heavily on small-dollar contributions. Nearly half of the money he raised in the past three months came from donors giving less than $150, whose identities don’t have to be disclosed.
On June 30, the last day of the most recent reporting period, Bailey’s campaign sent a fundraising plea to supporters, saying he needed to raise an additional $5,397 to reach his goal for the quarter.
“This is a big fight, and every last dollar raised matters,” Bailey said directly to the camera in a video recorded while sitting in a vehicle. “Will you help chip in 50, 25 or even $5 to our campaign today so that we can put pressure on JB Pritzker?”
Bailey’s fundraising struggles in a race against Pritzker, a billionaire Hyatt Hotels heir who spent a combined $350 million to win his first two races and seeded his bid for a rare third term with $25.5 million in November, have created an opening for an independent candidate. Former Republican political consultant Collin Corbett, who secured a spot on the ballot this week, had more than $379,000 in his account to start July, records show, a total that was largely due to a $500,000 loan Corbett made to his own campaign on June 25.
The disparity between Pritzker’s and Bailey’s campaigns is evident not only in the amount of cash they had on hand at the end of June but also in how the campaigns are spending the dollars they’ve raised.
From April through June, the Pritzker campaign spent nearly $6.9 million on airtime and other advertising, records show. The second-largest expenditure was nearly $858,000 on payroll for 49 campaign staffers, several of whom previously worked in the governor’s office under Pritzker.
Bailey, on the other hand, reported spending more than $914,000, roughly two-thirds of the total his campaign raised during the quarter, on direct mail fundraising and related postage. The campaign spent just $39,000 on the salaries of five staffers, plus another $26,000 on “general campaign consulting,” mostly paid to campaign strategist Jose Durbin.
The large percentage Bailey reported spending on fundraising efforts drew criticism from Corbett’s campaign. “We’re not sure Darren Bailey’s supporters would be happy to find out where their hard-earned money is actually going,” the campaign said Thursday in an emailed statement.
Corbett’s spot on the ballot was assured this week after the Bailey campaign dropped its challenge to his nominating petitions and a hearing officer determined he collected the requisite number of voter signatures. Speaking to reporters Tuesday outside an elections board meeting in Chicago, Corbett predicted his fundraising would increase in the coming months.
“We had a lot of donors who wanted to see that we were on the ballot first, before contributing. And so now that we’re officially on the ballot, you’re going to see our fundraising really pick up,” said Corbett, who dismissed Bailey as a “perennial candidate.”
In the other marquee matchup, Stratton far outraised Tracy in the opening months of the general election Senate race.
Stratton raised $1.1 million through her main campaign account, plus additional funds through a joint fundraising committee with the Democratic Party of Illinois, compared with Tracy’s nearly $133,000. Tracy, part of the family that owns food redistributor Dot Foods, also spent more than he brought in — almost $164,000, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Stratton had more than $1.1 million on hand in her main campaign committee, records show. Tracy, who previously lent his campaign $2 million, had about $1.5 million in his campaign account at the end of June.
Tracy’s expenses included paying a handful of aides. He also paid Cor Services and Cor Strategies, the firm Corbett founded before he ran for governor, about $40,000 for consulting and other services, records show. Corbett and the Tracy campaign no longer work together but some employees from the firm are still on Tracy’s campaign, Tracy said.
Stratton’s campaign reported paying salaries to more than a dozen people, with her main committee spending about $700,000 total.
Despite raising more in the past three months, Stratton’s campaign appealed to supporters Thursday in an email with the subject line “Urgent.”
“We’ve officially passed the halfway point in July, and unfortunately, we’ve continued to fall behind on our monthly fundraising goals,” read the email in Stratton’s name.
“Normally, I wouldn’t worry too much. This grassroots team has always shown up when it counts. But this time, the stakes are higher than ever.”
Stratton, who won a bruising Democratic primary with the help of more than $10 million from Pritzker, said Tracy was “using his personal fortune to self-fund his campaign and smear me.”
Tracy, for his part, in a phone call Thursday acknowledged that fundraising in Illinois as a statewide Republican is challenging.
“Unless you keep charging the hill, you’re never going to win,” he said. Tracy planned to put more of his own money into the campaign, he said, but “I don’t have Pritzker bucks.”
The challenges at the top of the GOP ticket also have trickled down the ballot as the moribund state Republican Party continues to struggle against the well-funded Democrats who hold all statewide elected offices in Illinois, along with supermajority control in both chambers of the state legislature and a 14-3 advantage in the state’s congressional delegation.
As during the GOP primary, Bailey’s largest individual contributor during the general election campaign to date is former northwest suburban paving magnate Gary Rabine, a onetime rival for the party’s 2022 nomination. Rabine, who now lives in Naples, Florida, gave Bailey’s campaign $25,000, on top of $30,000 he contributed for the spring primary campaign.
As he eyes a possible run for Chicago mayor next spring, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias was sitting on $21.8 million as of July 1, while GOP challenger Diane Harris had just over $1,800. Giannoulias could direct money from his secretary of state campaign fund to a potential mayoral race.
In the race for attorney general, two-term incumbent Kwame Raoul had $1.7 million on hand to Republican nominee Bob Fioretti’s roughly $28,000.
With incumbent Comptroller Susan Mendoza not seeking reelection in favor of a second try at becoming Chicago’s mayor, the Democratic nominee, three-term state Rep. Margaret Croke of Chicago, had nearly $109,000 in her account. The GOP candidate, attorney Bryan Drew of Benton, had more than $54,000 on hand, making it the most competitive race for a state constitutional office, in terms of fundraising.
There were no Republican candidates on the primary ballot for state treasurer, the first time in nearly a century that a major political party did not have any candidate file to run in a primary for statewide office, according to incumbent Treasurer Michael Frerichs’ campaign. Max Solomon qualified for the November ballot as a write-in candidate for treasurer in the GOP primary.
