Illinois Isn’t Finished Yet

I wanted to get back into campaign mode. We’re about three months from the Illinois gubernatorial election, and we’ve heard nary a peep from Republican nominee Darren Bailey. Meanwhile Governor J.B. Pritzker has been making noise about President Donald Trump and signaling his own 2028 ambitions.

Recently Al Salvi sat down with Jeff Berkowitz on Public Affairs for a half-hour worth watching if you care about Illinois at all. The title is blunt: Should ex-State Rep Al Salvi run Bailey’s IL Gov Campaign. The conversation is less about staffing charts and more about whether Bailey can actually beat Pritzker in November.

Watch it here: [VIDEO]

Salvi’s argument is straightforward. Taxes and affordability are the dominant issues. He says Pritzker is more politically vulnerable than conventional wisdom admits, that the governor has not focused enough on Illinois itself, and that high taxes, weak schools, public-safety worries after the SAFE-T Act, and out-migration have made life harder than it needs to be. Berkowitz pushes back on the polling, the money, the messaging, and whether Bailey’s campaign is breaking through. That tension is the useful part of the interview.

The education section belongs on this blog. Salvi and Berkowitz both treat failing proficiency—not just in Chicago, but across the state—as a real problem. Salvi’s answer is school choice: let the money follow the student, including to private options, at less than the full per-pupil amount now spent. He argues that would introduce competition, give parents an exit from schools that are not working, and still cost taxpayers less. The opposition, in his telling, is mostly from unions that do not want to lose students or jobs. You do not have to accept every frame to notice the question underneath it: if large numbers of Illinois kids are not reading or doing math at grade level, what exactly is the current system protecting?

The other thread that stuck with me is the “lost cause” problem. Salvi says Bailey’s biggest obstacle is not the issues. It is the belief among Republican donors that Illinois cannot be won. He traces that fatigue to the 2022 primary, when major donors spent tens of millions on opposing candidates and then walked away. The result, he argues, is a self-fulfilling prophecy: people decide the state is unwinnable, they withhold resources, and the campaign never gets the airtime to make the case. Whether you like Bailey or not, that is a civic problem. A state that its own residents treat as unfixable will keep acting like one.

This is a rematch. Bailey lost in 2022, won the 2026 primary on a shoestring budget, and is now trying to run a statewide race against an incumbent who can write his own checks. Salvi wants more visible unity after the primary—especially from Ted Dabrowski and, if possible, from the donors who sat this one out. He also wants a clearer, louder case on taxes, schools, and safety. Berkowitz keeps asking whether that case is actually reaching voters. Fair question.

I keep coming back to the same thought exercise this blog has been circling for a while. What would a more competitive, more livable Illinois actually require? Lower property taxes? Real school choice? A different approach to crime and migration? Or is the deeper issue that too many people have already decided the Land of Lincoln is a finished story?

Watch the interview. Then tell me what you think.

Does Bailey have a path, or is Salvi describing a race the money already decided not to fund? And if the schools piece is as bad as they say, what should Illinois do about it that does not just become another slogan?