Republican candidate for Illinois governor Darren Bailey has dialed back his stance on abortion, even omitting it from his policy platform. But that hasn’t stopped the downstate farmer and former GOP legislator from campaigning on it.
Bailey and his running mate, Aaron Del Mar, spoke at a “Save America” rally in Springfield this week. The event was sponsored by anti-abortion organization Illinois Family Action, the political arm of the Illinois Family Institute, which regularly lobbies against bills expanding abortion access in Springfield.
During his six minute-speech, Del Mar railed against Illinois abortion laws, saying Gov. JB Pritzker, who is running for a historic third-term, is “willing to murder millions of babies.”
“Nobody wants to make Illinois a Mecca for abortions from everyone around the country to come here and sin against God,” Del Mar said, drawing applause from the audience.
But the Cook County GOP chairman said, in a July interview with WBEZ as part of a media tour promoting his slate’s economic policies, that abortion is not on their legislative agenda this time around.
“No matter how many times JB Pritzker and the Democrat majority try to say that Darren and Aaron are going to try to take away women’s access to reproductive care, that is a flat-out lie,” Del Mar said.
Bailey and Del Mar’s campaign did not return requests for comment.
In a statement, Pritzker’s campaign spokesperson said Bailey and Del Mar are focused on “spreading the extreme MAGA agenda by attacking women’s right to choose, supporting Trump’s failing economic agenda, and spreading far-right conspiracy theories.”
Bailey faces an uphill battle, once again, as he faces off with incumbent and self-funded billionaire Pritzker. In his bid against Pritzker in 2022, Bailey leaned more into his conservative stances on social issues, including restricting abortion access, expanding gun rights and notoriously referring to Chicago as a “hellhole,” which he apologized for earlier this year.
He lost handily to Pritzker, severely underperforming in Cook County and the collar counties.
Del Mar said Bailey has changed their public-facing campaign after “learning from his mistakes from four years ago,” and they are instead focusing on affordability.
“We’re talking about core services,” Del Mar told WBEZ last month. “We’re not talking about abortion, we’re not talking about transgender issues.”
Illinois Family Action withheld its endorsement of Bailey during the March primaries, despite donating to his 2022 campaign. The group, instead, endorsed conservative think tank President Ted Dabrowski, who lost to Bailey by 24%.
Yet, IFA invited Bailey and Del Mar, along with Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Don Tracy, who recently told Illinois Public Media, “I do not support nationalizing abortion law.”
And in May, Bailey spoke at a Christian conference in Decatur, where he said “Anyone who knows me knows there’s no one here more pro-life or more pro Second Amendment than I.”
General elections take place Nov. 3.
Mawa Iqbal covers state government and politics for WBEZ. Follow @mawa_iqbal