SPRINGFIELD — Darren Bailey, the two-time Republican candidate for governor who has ardently courted President Donald Trump’s support in past bids for office, sought Thursday to distance himself from Trump in the minds of voters while staunchly defending the president’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics one day after a federal agent fatally shot a U.S. citizen in Minnesota.
Responding to a reporter’s question on the shooting death Wednesday of 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, Bailey said at a Statehouse news conference in Springfield that “it breaks my heart when anyone loses their life.” But the GOP candidate for Illinois governor said the Trump administration’s federal intervention was due to Illinois and Minnesota sanctuary policies and because the Democratic governors of both states, JB Pritzker and Tim Walz, don’t uphold federal immigration laws.
“None of this should be happening if state government would be upholding the law. If we were doing this in Illinois, if they were doing it in Minnesota, the federal government would have no need to be there,” he said. Bailey added that he was “not familiar at all with the details” of the Minnesota shooting, videos of which ran counter to the federal Department of Homeland Security’s description of events, as has been the case in other immigration agent encounters.
“A life was lost and it shouldn’t have been lost,” Bailey said. “I feel like the federal government is upholding the law that is written in the absence of the state doing so.”
Pritzker, seeking reelection to a rare third term, said at an unrelated news conference in Joliet that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem should quit or be removed and said he had directed the Illinois State Police to work closely with the Minnesota Bureau of Investigation “to support their efforts to pursue justice.”
“We’ll do everything within our authority and capacity to ensure accountability is delivered,” Pritzker said, adding that the shooting incident in Minnesota mirrored many of Illinois’ experiences with federal immigration actions during Operation Midway Blitz in the fall as agents sowed fear and chaos in Chicago-area communities.
“It is harrowing. It is unimaginable to think that this can happen in our country or that when it does happen, the government immediately tries to cover it up,” Pritzker said after reviewing a video of the Minnesota shooting. “It should anger you. It angers me. It should compel you to peacefully stand up for justice. It’s time for Kristi Noem to go.”
Bailey, of downstate Louisville, is one of four candidates seeking the GOP nomination for governor in the March 17 primary, along with conservative activist Ted Dabrowski, DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick and real estate developer Rick Heidner.
Bailey has actively courted Trump’s backing and has regularly visited the president’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida, winning his endorsement for Bailey’s unsuccessful 2022 bid for governor but failing to get it when he unsuccessfully challenged veteran Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro in the 2024 GOP primary.
Following the tragic deaths of his son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren in a Montana helicopter accident in October, Bailey cited a letter of condolence he received from Trump that urged him to “Fight! Fight! Fight! for your beloved state in honor of your beautiful family.”
But even as he supported Trump’s immigration push and has backed the president’s attempts to deploy the National Guard in Chicago for law enforcement activity, which were blocked by the courts, Bailey sought to create some space between himself and a controversial president who has alienated voters in the critical Chicago suburbs that were once the center of Republicanism in the state. Bailey’s association with Trump also was a major factor in his near 13 percentage point loss to Pritzker four years ago.
Voters, Bailey said, are “going to have to get over the federal (Trump administration) situations. Then we’re going to understand we have our own problems in Illinois. I am my own person and I’ve proven that regardless of who I like, who I support.”
“I’m running this campaign. I believe we’ve got an avenue to win. If it comes, great. If it doesn’t, fine. I’m here for Illinois,” Bailey said. “This (campaign) doesn’t revolve around Donald Trump and I want the people of Illinois to truly understand that. I want them to come and have a conversation with me. We’ve got our own unique problems and solutions and it’s time that we stop this political divisiveness.”
Still, Bailey said he supported the Trump administration’s move to freeze $1 billion in federal social service and child care funding for Illinois, among $10 billion in funds frozen that were earmarked to five Democratic states, alleging massive fraud.
“I think it’s fair for any administration to demand accountability, and, when they suspect fraud and they ask for accountability and transparency, and they’re not given that,” he said of the freeze.
But he faulted Pritzker for not going to “sit down with the president” to “work that out,” saying “that is money that Illinois needs desperately.”
“I put that full blame on JB Pritzker that we don’t have it instead of President Trump,” Bailey said. “Our out-of-touch billionaire governor has allowed his hatred of Donald Trump to consume him.”
Pritzker said in addition to reviews by the state auditor general, Illinois has a “very robust system of oversight checking in on the child care centers across the state.”
“There is no specific allegation of any fraud against the state of Illinois. There’s been no investigation that the federal government has yielded some evidence to come forward about any of it,” he said. “And note that they picked five states to cut off funding for. All of them are run by Democratic governors that he doesn’t like. And so it’s clear this is political, this isn’t about going after fraud. This is simply about politics for Donald Trump and attacks on people that he disagrees with.”
Bailey’s comments came as he unveiled what he called his campaign’s “Blueprint for Illinois,” a list of largely aspirational Republican goals such as repealing sanctuary, no-cash bail and energy efficiency laws backed by Pritzker and Democratic legislative supermajorities.
He also proposed capping local property taxes, the primary source of funding for Illinois public schools, while increasing state tax funding for education — though he did not say where the dollars would come from.
Like his rival, Dabrowski, Bailey also said he would create a federal-style Department of Government Efficiency to review contracts and programs to root out fraud and encourage transparency. But, like Dabrowski, he identified no sources of fraud.
Of DOGE, the Trump administration’s federal program run by Elon Musk that significantly failed to achieve much-ballyhooed estimates of $2 trillion in savings, Bailey’s running mate, Aaron Del Mar, who would run the state program, said, “You know what? People may not like the brand and they may not like the name, but I guarantee you they are going to love the results.”
But Pritzker said, “I don’t think anybody in Illinois thinks that we ought to do what Elon Musk did to the federal government in the state of Illinois.”
Tribune reporter Jeremy Gorner contributed from Joliet.