IL Governor · 2026
Democrats are heavily favored to win this governorship
99% probability
Candidates
Last verified 2026-11-02.
J.B. Pritzker
Democrat
Jay Robert Pritzker is an American politician, philanthropist, and businessman serving since 2019 as the 43rd governor of Illinois.
Darren Bailey
Republican
Held by a Democrat, seeking re-election.
Not applicable to this race: Candidate fundraising split, Candidate fundraising data available · Built on annual structural data, current release 2026-05-29: State mood: Domestic Stability, State mood: Isolation. See /status for current data freshness.
Fundraising as of 2026-09-30 (Illinois State Board of Elections).
Why we think this
- This state's baseline partisan lean favors Democrats by about 44 points of margin before anything else is considered.
- The seat is currently held by a Democrat, who is running for re-election -- incumbents usually run ahead of their party's baseline.
- Separately, current public mood in this state specifically is shifting strongly toward Democrats, on top of the structural baseline.
- Independently, the national midterm environment is shifting every race this cycle modestly toward Democrats -- a separate, nationwide force layered on top of the state-specific factors above, not a restatement of them.
Model details -- coefficients, calibration, and the full technical decomposition.
Model sengov-2026-govmoney-v2 · computed 2026-11-09