Chicago Sun-Times · Mitchell Armentrout · September 9, 2026
It's deja vu from 2022 at the top of the ticket in this November's race for Illinois governor, but there is one new face trying to shape the conversation.
Independent candidate Collin Corbett says he's providing the middle ground many voters yearn for between incumbent Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and Republican nominee Darren Bailey, who lost soundly four years ago on a hardline conservative platform.
While Pritzker attacks Bailey for his allegiance to President Donald Trump and the downstate farmer returns fire on the billionaire governor's progressive agenda, Corbett's looking for "a space for people to be able to go where they can have a home again in our politics."
"As both parties have continued to chase the extremes, both ideologically and on a personality level, more and more people feel like they don't have a home," said Corbett, a 40-year-old political consultant from Palatine. "Being able to give them a place where we can talk common sense on policies, we can identify the challenges and actually seek out solutions while the two parties just continue to snip at each other -- we can go and try to make things better in our state."
A fiscal conservative who supports abortion rights and opposes much of the Trump agenda, Corbett collected 37,000 signatures to get on the ballot and has pumped $500,000 into a campaign with twice the spending power of Bailey's two months out of the Nov. 3 election.
Corbett, who won't match the wealthy Pritzker's bottomless resources, took leave from his consulting firm and his podcast earlier this year while leaving the Republican Party altogether, abandoning "a political process that's actively hurting people." He pointed to Trump's aggressive deportation campaign.
"I've spoken out a lot about immigration, obviously, where your political position is hurting people, hurting communities. And then you get to Minneapolis -- literally killing people," said Corbett, who has long "actively opposed Trump when he's wrong."
"But I also believe he's in the White House. He's the president, so when he's right, you should work with him and support him," said Corbett, who started out working on the campaigns of former suburban GOP stalwarts and U.S. Reps. Peter Roskam and Bob Dold.
Like Bailey, Corbett argues Pritzker -- who has done little to quell speculation on a 2028 presidential run -- could better serve the state by establishing a working relationship with Trump.
"[Pritzker's] presidential ambitions are not good for Illinoisans because he's going to oppose Trump no matter what, because he wants to be president," Corbett said. "I understand why he's doing it, but it's leading to this petty feud between Trump and Pritzker, where two ego-driven, very petty individuals are trying to hurt the other side.
"Everyday people are getting hurt as a result -- Trump yanking funding from mental health services and child care services. This is hurting real people, and then you see what happened with ICE coming into Chicago and targeting our state," he said.
Following Illinois' 12th credit rating upgrade under Pritzker, Corbett argues "JB gets a bit of a pass because he has done some things better than his predecessors."
"You can only grade on a curve for so long," Corbett said. "A lot of people, even left of center, have said structurally, there are changes we need to make in this state, because this is not sustainable. I think their hearts are in the right place, but when you have a state that isn't growing, you're not generating that revenue."
A Pritzker campaign spokesperson said, "Donald Trump is an existential threat to our democracy, and defending Illinois means standing up to Trump. Gov. Pritzker is proud to be on the front lines of that fight while also restoring fiscal responsibility, making historic investments in education, and lowering costs for working families."
On the other end of the spectrum, "Bailey's approach of just slashing government to the bone is not going to work, nor is it feasible," Corbett said.
"[Bailey's] campaign is all about telling people what they want to hear instead of actually presenting solutions to the problems that we face... I know it gets me fewer likes on social media, but I don't care."
A Bailey campaign spokesperson called Corbett "a failed political consultant who has spent his career helping politicians raise taxes on working families. Now he wants voters to believe he'll fight for them. The reality is simple: a vote for Collin is a vote for JB Pritzker and more of the same failed policies costing Illinois families dearly."
As a political consultant, Corbett knows the odds are stacked against an independent, though he says his polling shows he'd do better in a head-to-head matchup with Pritzker than Bailey would.
Corbett says his campaign is more about building a bridge away from two-party tribalism.
"There is a lot of hope for our movement beyond my run for governor, a lot of hope that we can create a space where people can lead in their communities, even if that's somebody who isn't on the far end of the spectrum on either the right or the left," he said. "We need that because there's a lot of really good people who want to step up and lead in the state."