Part I of this paper provides a description of the Democratic and Republican Primaries in Illinois for the mid-term elections of 2022.
Part II then turns to the general election campaigns focusing on the governor’s race between incumbent Democrat J. B. Pritzker and his Republican challenger, State Senator Darren Bailey. The race for the U. S. Senate between the incumbent, Tammy Duckworth, and Kathy Salvi, and the state’s Constitutional Offices are also analyzed. The unit of analysis utilized is the county-level aggregate data voting returns. Part III deals with the aftermath of the November election with a focus on the SAFE-T Act and the assault weapons ban, at the end of November since the veto session agenda was an extension of the preceding election.
The results show how the state races were inextricably set into the context of the national tides that had produced a deeply polarized America and how this played out in the traditionally blue state of Illinois. These prominent issues continued to rile Illinois and national politics, and helped define the major differences between the two parties. The debate over them continued immediately after the election and started to set the stage for the second Pritzker administration and the beginning of the 2024 national election. In addition, the vote on the new amendment to the Illinois constitution providing protection for the rights of organized labor is analyzed. Extensive economic data are presented, differentiating the counties which voted for the amendment and those which voted against it. Those counties are also compared to the Pritzker vs. Bailey counties
