GOP lieutenant governor candidate Stephanie Trussell and GOP gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey submitting nomination petitions on Mon., March 7, 2022. (Source: Darren Bailey for Governor on Twitter)

 

This article was originally published as part of The Picayune Sentinel’s June 16 issue.

Unless these polls are flukes, this race is over.

Darren Bailey is in first place in the six-candidate field with 32% support according to a WBEZ/Sun-Times poll taken last week, nearly lapping the field in the June 28 Republican gubernatorial primary. In second place with just 17% is Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, who held a narrow lead in a poll taken in early May

Bailey holds a similarly commanding lead, 38% to 20%, in a Trafalgar Group poll taken June 10-13.

The other four candidates combined have 23% support in the WBEZ/Sun-Times poll and 26% in the Trafalgar poll.

I consider it unlikely that a strong percentage of the undecideds — 27% in WBEZ/Sun-Times, 16% in Trafalgar — will end up voting for Irvin given that they have evidently yet to be swayed by his relentless TV advertising.

And there’s now a better chance that President Donald Trump, whose endorsement has been shown to carry weight with Republican primary voters, will put his thumb on the scale for Bailey, quite possibly during a June 25 political rally at the Adams County Fairgrounds near Quincy, Illinois.

Irvin, seeming to be angling for support from moderates in the general election, has kept his distance from Trump, and Trump is known to offer endorsements only to those he thinks will be winners.

But it’s hard to imagine Bailey or, really, anyone in the Republican field beating incumbent Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker in November.

Eric Zorn is the writer of the Picayune Sentinel newsletter and a former Chicago Tribune columnist. You can follow him on Twitter @EricZorn.