- Ted Dabrowski, the president of a conservative public policy research organization, said he plans to announce his campaign for governor.
- Dabrowski joins DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick in the Republican primary for governor.
- Former Illinois GOP Chair Don Tracy announced he will run for U.S. Senate in 2026.
The reporters and editors who worked on this story wrote this synopsis.
The spring field After a sluggish start to naming candidates for the 2026 election, more Republicans are running for statewide office.
On Thursday, Illinois Republicans gathered around the Illinois State Fair for their annual gatherings. Ted Dabrowski, the president of the conservative research group Wirepoints, announced he will run for governor in the upcoming weeks, while former Illinois GOP Chair Don Tracy announced he would run for the U.S. Senate.
A week after the deadline for candidates to start gathering signatures, which are due to the State Board of Elections at the end of October, the men enter the 2026 contest.
“I’ve been reporting on Illinois for 15 years, and I’ve seen the state continue to deteriorate despite my many suggestions for solutions,” Dabrowski told reporters.
Dabrowski sWirepoints.org promotes conservative solutions on pensions, taxes, governance, and other public policy challenges while publishing research and analysis on state policy topics. After working in banking for almost 20 years, Dabrowski served as vice president of policy at the conservative Illinois Policy Institute think tank before joining Wirepoints in 2017.
He claimed that under Governor JB Pritzker, who is running for a third term in 2026, the state’s business climate, tax load, and population growth had gotten worse. According to Dabrowski, his main goals are raising school reading proficiency, lowering costs, and generating employment.
Where Republican candidates agree with President Donald Trump, however, will be a key subject they must address. On Thursday, Dabrowski avoided the topic.
Dabrowski claimed that Donald Trump has nothing to do with the issues in Illinois. The property taxes are beyond his control. The gas taxes are beyond his control. He is unable to stop our movement. It must be fixed.
Mendrick focuses on crime
DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick, who is running with Dabrowski, said he thinks the president is doing a fine job overall but termed the Medicaid cuts signed by Trump unsustainable.
Although I don’t pay much attention to national and presidential affairs, I’ll be honest with you: based on my observations thus far, he appears to be doing fairly well financially, Mendrick remarked. There isn’t anything he is doing at the moment that I would disagree with.
As the sole elected official in the Republican primary for governor, Mendrick is drawing on his background.
Mendrick told reporters that he approaches his work with bipartisanship and that he is aware of how politics operate in the workplace. Compared to most other applicants, I believe I can perform significantly better.
His main concern is crime. Darren Bailey, a former state senator, focused his failed 2022 bid for governor on this subject. The distinction, according to Mendrick, is that he feels qualified to handle public safety matters because of his experience as a sheriff.
Mendrick survived a wave of Democratic victory in DuPage County in 2022 because he was elected sheriff in 2018 and had no opponent. He still needs to persuade other Republican leaders to back him, though.
Senator John Curran, a Republican from DuPage County, told reporters that although he has done a fantastic job as sheriff, like any other candidate, he has get out there and create a base of support.
Mendrick and Dabrowski both alluded to having a number of potential donors ready to contribute to their campaigns.
A businessman from Lake Forest named Joe Severino, who has run unsuccessfully for Congress, has also declared his intention to run for governor.
Tracy to run for Senate
After leaving her position as party chair last summer due to internal strife inside the party’s State Central Committee, Tracy is returning to politics. Tracy is the most well-known person to enter the Senate campaign, however a number of other candidates have submitted paperwork to the Federal Election Commission to run for office.
Read more: Illinois GOP chair resigns weeks before Republican National Convention
According to Tracy, a Springfield lawyer who lost his 2010 bid for lieutenant governor, he intends to finance the majority of his campaign himself and thinks he can win over supporters from all Republican factions.
Tracy told Capitol News Illinois that it’s a team effort. But I know folks all around the state since I was the state chairman and ran statewide in 2010. I believe that many people will assist me, and I will require their assistance. I will require the assistance of every Republican.
Some in the party have already chastised Tracy for not speaking out more in favor of Trump. Trump received little attention at Tracy’s final State Fair as party chair in 2023. Tracy, however, stated on Thursday that he is in favor of Trump’s program.
According to Tracy, the goals of the Trump administration are law and order, prosperity, and peace. I believe that the majority of Americans, including the majority of Illinoisans, are in favor of that agenda.
According to him, Tracy’s main worry will be voters’ concerns about affordability.
It has become unaffordable for working people, particularly in Illinois, where taxes are high in addition to inflation, Tracy stated. It will require a lot of labor, but I don’t fear hard work.
Other races
Republican voters’ statewide candidate selections for the March primary are still being finalized. While Bob Fioretti, a Cook County lawyer who has competed unsuccessfully for multiple positions in both parties, intends to run for attorney general, no contenders have surfaced for comptroller or treasurer.
The candidate for secretary of state is Diane Harris, a trustee at Joliet Junior College who is involved with Will County Republican organizations and lost her 2022 bid for the state senate. She claimed that new policies that put many services online aren’t working for everyone and that lineups at drivers’ services facilities are still excessively long.
Not everyone is online, despite the fact that we live in an internet age, Harris told Capitol News Illinois, adding that services that ought to be accessible at the offices at all times shouldn’t require appointments.
Republican leaders in the General Assembly recognized that the midterm election for a Republican president and Pritzker’s probable expenditure of millions to support Democrats may make this year difficult for Republican candidates in legislative races. Curran, however, expressed optimism.
We will be in a strong position to defend each and every seat. Since 16 of the 19 Republican senators, including himself, are running for reelection in 2026, Curran told reporters that 2026 would be about gains for us.
After Sen. Don DeWitte, R-St. Charles, and Rep. Amy Grant, R-Wheaton, declared they would not run for reelection, Democrats already have two seats in the west suburbs to target. In recent elections, both have maintained their seats in districts that have shifted more and more to the Democratic Party.
Democrats are energized whenever Republicans are in control, and vice versa. We will not, however, give up. House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, told reporters, “We’re going to stay activated.”
Hundreds of news outlets throughout the state receive coverage from the state government through Capitol News Illinois, a nonprofit, unbiased news organization. The Robert R. McCormick Foundation and the Illinois Press Foundation provide the majority of its funding.
This story is reproduced here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which was originally published on Capitol News Illinois.
