The 2026 Illinois gubernatorial election will be held on November 3, 2026, to elect the governor of Illinois. Primary elections were held on March 17, 2026. This election will coincide with various other federal and state elections, including the U.S. senate elections and U.S. house elections.
Incumbent governor JB Pritzker is running for re-election to a third term in office. However, lieutenant governor Juliana Stratton, who ran with Pritzker in both 2018 and 2022, is running for U.S. senate, making her ineligible to be Pritzker's running mate. This will be a rematch of the previous gubernatorial race of 2022 four years previously, and the first gubernatorial rematch in Illinois since 1986.
If Pritzker wins his reelection bid, he would become the first Democratic governor in Illinois history to complete two full terms.
A moderately to strongly blue state, Illinois has a reputation for being both the most populous and the most left-leaning state in the Midwest, traits vastly owed to the progressive and diverse Chicago metropolitan area. Though the state has historically favored Republicans for governor, Democrats have won all but one gubernatorial race in Illinois since 2002, the exception being Bruce Rauner's narrow victory in 2014. In addition, Democrats have won Illinois by double-digit margins in every presidential race since 1992; and consistently occupied all of its statewide offices since 2019.
Incumbent Governor JB Pritzker, a member of the Democratic Party, has comfortably won in the past two elections, having first been elected with a 15.6% lead in 2018 and won re-election by 12.5% in 2022. Despite the state's strong Democratic lean, Republicans are comfortably favored in most of rural Illinois, especially in much of West Central and Southern Illinois. Illinois is one of 16 states that do not have gubernatorial term limits. If Pritzker were to win, he would be the first governor elected to a third term since Jim Thompson in 1982.
JB Pritzker vs. Darren Bailey<br />
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