We are in the important pre-primary phase of the 2026 elections in Illinois (circulation of petitions opens in September), when prospective candidates strut their endorsements — and money raised — in efforts to scare off possible opponents. In our basically one-party state, Democratic wannabes are coming off a long bench to make their cases.

In contrast, Republicans have no bench of experienced, well-known prospects to speak of. Because of extreme gerrymandering, the GOP has few state legislators and no statewide officials whatsoever. Attractive but no-name candidates are being counseled by Republican insiders that this is a no-win year for the GOP and it’s better to stay out.

Will the GOP even show up with a slate of credible candidates for the U.S. Senate, the governorship and all other statewide offices?

After all, the party in the White House generally does poorly in the midterm election. And Gov JB Pritzker has more money than Croesus ($3.7 billion, according to Forbes) and seemingly giddy enthusiasm for spending it. Recent history shows he stands ready to bankroll all the Democratic statewide candidates with more than enough money to blow away the opposition. After all, he wants to show national Democrats that he leads his party to victory up and down the line.

GOP woes don’t end there. Illinois Republicans are divided into a downstate (outside the seven metro Chicago counties) that is enthusiastically pro-Donald Trump, versus the suburbs, where moderates and Democrats reign.

For example, DuPage County and its 920,000 residents used to be largely white and GOP. But the times, they are a’changin’. According to the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), a language other than English is now spoken at home in nearly one-third of the households in the six counties surrounding Cook. Republican George Ryan won the governorship in 1998 with 70% of the DuPage County vote, whereas Trump garnered 42% of that county’s vote in 2024.

GOP nominees for the U.S. Senate and governorship will have to declare their position on Trump, a no-win situation: Come out strongly for Trump and lose the suburbs or come out against Trump and watch voters downstate sit on their hands in November. Be wishy-washy on Trump, and lose votes across the board.

And who will bankroll GOP candidates in the face of such dour prospects? Billionaire Ken Griffin has departed Illinois for Florida, with his millions for GOP causes. Make no mistake: Big money has replaced party organization as the engine of candidate success.

Lightning does strike, however. In 2004, little-known state Sen. Barack Obama entered a crowded field that sought an open seat in the U.S. Senate. Trailing in the polls throughout in the Democratic primary, Obama surged to victory when, near the end of the primary, the front-runner’s candidacy imploded almost overnight as a result of juicy revelations of messy marital discord.

In the general election campaign that followed, the attractive GOP nominee dropped out of the race because of sexual peccadilloes revealed in unsealed divorce records, and Obama skated into the U.S. Senate. The rest, as they say …

I expect there will be no-name and, maybe otherwise, very attractive candidates on the ballot next year for the GOP but with little money.

I have mentioned money several times in this essay. In the past decade, Pritzker has spent $400 million on his own and associates’ campaigns. A Democrat, he even sabotaged the Republican primary campaign for governor in 2022. In that year, according to this newspaper, Pritzker spent $24 million to boost the nomination of possibly the weakest of his possible opponents for the general election. Pritzker’s money advertised that Darren Bailey was “too extreme” for Illinois — which was, irony definitely intended, an attractive message for a big swath of conservative GOP primary voters. Shameful politics.

Big money, corrosive of democracy, could be the overarching issue for Republican candidates in 2026: “You can’t buy my vote! Don’t let JB Pritzker continue to buy elections in Illinois!”

Lightning does strike. But you have to show up.

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Jim Nowlan has participated in and observed Illinois politics for six decades as an elected state legislator, statewide Republican candidate, campaign manager for U.S. Senate and presidential campaigns and professor of political science at the University of Illinois. He is a co-author of “Illinois Politics: A Citizen’s Guide to Power, Politics and Government.”

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