2022 Illinois gubernatorial election facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
2022 Illinois gubernatorial election

← 2018 November 8, 2022 2026 →
Turnout	50.96% 5.19 pp
Nominee J. B. Pritzker Darren Bailey Party Democrat Republican Running mate Juliana Stratton Stephanie Trussell Popular vote 2,253,748 1,739,095 Percentage 54.9% 42.4%
County results Congressional district results Township results Pritzker:      40–50%      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90% Bailey:      40–50%      50–60%      60–70%      70–80%      80–90%      >90% Tie:       No Vote:
Governor before election J. B. Pritzker Democrat Elected Governor J. B. Pritzker Democrat

The 2022 Illinois gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 2022, to elect the governor of Illinois, concurrently with the 2022 Illinois general election. Gubernatorial candidates ran on tickets with candidates for lieutenant governor. The incumbent governor and lieutenant governor, first-term Democrats J. B. Pritzker and Juliana Stratton, sought re-election together against Republican nominees Illinois State Senator Darren Bailey and his running mate Stephanie Trussell.

On election day, Pritzker won re-election with 54.9% of the vote, 0.4% higher than his 2018 performance, and the best raw vote percentage for a Democrat for governor since 1960. However, his margin of victory declined from 15.7% in 2018 to just 12.5% in 2022. Pritzker's victory was once again the result of a strong performance in the Chicago metropolitan area—containing a majority of the state's population—winning a lopsided victory in strongly Democratic Cook County, the home of Chicago, as well as winning all but one of the neighboring collar counties. Bailey improved upon former Republican governor Bruce Rauner's performance in 2018 by just under 4%, largely due to the absence of a strong third-party conservative candidate that appeared in 2018. Subsequently, Bailey was able to flip the counties of Alexander, Fulton, Jackson, Knox, and Winnebago which Pritzker previously won, while Pritzker managed to flip McLean county, marking the first time since 1948 that it has voted for a Democrat in a gubernatorial election.

Pritzker was the first Illinois governor to serve a full term and be reelected for a second since Rod Blagojevich in 2006. If Pritzker serves the entirety of his term, he would become the first Democratic governor in the state's history to serve two full four-year terms, as every other Democratic governor had either been impeached, died or resigned before finishing their second term.

Results

Counties that flipped from Democratic to Republican

• Alexander (Largest city: Cairo)
• Fulton (Largest city: Canton)
• Jackson (Largest city: Carbondale)
• Knox (Largest city: Galesburg)
• Winnebago (Largest city: Rockford)

Counties that flipped from Republican to Democratic

• McLean (Largest city: Bloomington)

By congressional district

Pritzker won 14 of 17 congressional districts.