Pritzker, Bailey Meet For First Televised Debate In Governor's Race

NORMAL, IL — The first televised debate between Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and State Sen. Darren Bailey, his Republican challenger in next month's election, is set for Thursday evening at Illinois State University.

The incumbent governor, who helped fund the GOP primary campaign of his general election opponent, secured his first term by a 15-point margin four years ago. In recent polls, Pritzker's lead over Bailey ranges from 5 to 15 points.

The billionaire Democrat gave his own campaign a $20 million donation last month, bringing his total financial contributions to his reelection campaign since March 2021 to $120 million.

Bailey's largest donor is Lake Forest billionaire Richard Uihlein, who has given him a total of $10 million. Uihlein is also the sole source of funding for the conservative political action committee People Who Play By The Rules.

Thursday's debate begins at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on Nextstar television stations, including WGN-TV in the Chicago area, as well as NPR-affiliated radio stations and streamed live on YouTube.

Ahead of their first broadcast encounter, Pritzker and Bailey last week appeared in a remote forum hosted by the Illinois Associated Press Media Editors.

The Sept. 30 event, which featured questions from reporters from around the state, nearly did not happen after the governor's campaign pulled out in response to news that Daily Herald parent company had printed political pamphlets posing as newspapers paid for by the People Who Play By The Rules PAC.

Pritzker and Bailey showed stark contrasts on such subjects as the SAFE-T Act, whether the state has had a balanced budget and state gun laws.

"My opponent likes to ignore the fact that we went through a deadly global pandemic. He ignored it while we were in it, hasn't been vaccinated, didn't wear a mask, didn't encourage people to. the reality is as we were fighting through that pandemic we were spending dollars to save people's lives," Pritzker said.

"The budget actually has reduced from its height of the worst part of the pandemic, and I'm proud of having balanced the budget for four years in a row," he added. "This wasn't from federal dollars, this was from prudent fiscal responsibility that Democrats have exercised."

Bailey, who said that he would implement a zero-based budgeting approach in state agencies, questioned the governor's accounting.

"The facts show that here in Illinois, our children in school, the majority of them, they can't read, they cannot write, and they cannot do math up to grade level and, unfortunately, it appears that the leader of our state is having trouble with math as well," Bailey said. "Because the reality is the very first budget that I was honored to vote 'no' on was $6 billion out of whack and no we have not had a balanced budget in 30 years here in Illinois."

The Xenia state senator said it was "obscene" to contest that federal money balanced the budget.

"I mean this is actually amazing," Bailey said. "Twenty-four tax hikes, $5 billion in annual tax increases. Thank goodness Illinois voters rejected the $3 billion progressive tax that was laid on the table [as a constitutional amendment in the 2020 election]. This is unreal, the 2019 budget was a $34 billion budget. Today we have a $46.5 billion budget. I mean, where's the math at?"

Both candidates accused their opponent of lying during their discussion of the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today Act, or SAFE-T Act, which contains provisions ending cash bail.

Pritzker said he was open to signing a bill before the end of the year that makes further amendments to the act.

"Because we always want to improve a law if we can, and so there are proposals that have been made to make clarifications in the law, to make sure that people understand very well that, no, this law does not create 'non-detainable' offenses, and that, no, people are not going to be let out of jail on Jan. 1," the governor said.

Pritzker did not commit to the specifics of an draft amendment from State Sen. Scott Bennett to grant additional discretion to judges, but he praised the intentions of the Champaign Democrat.

"I'm always open to working with people who are rational and reasonable in their proposals," Pritzker said.

Bailey did not budge on his call for the bill to be fully repealed, rather than amended — even, should he unseat the governor, the SAFE-T Act will have already taken effect by the time he is inaugurated.

"My opinion is it must be repealed in its entirety and then when it is reconstructed it must have everyone at the table instead of behind locked doors, where Gov. Pritzker was at the entire time with it," Bailey said.

In terms of the state's gun laws, Bailey stood by his call to eliminate Firearm Owners Identification cards, calling the FOID card gun licensing system a "money grab." Surrounding states were doing fine without such a requirement, he said, and the real issue is a lack of enforcement of existing laws.

"As I look at our gun laws that we have in existence I can look back at almost every violent crime that's been committed and I can see that law that should have avoided that and protected that if it were followed," Bailey said.

Pritzker called for the state to ban assault weapons, citing this summer's massacre at the Highland Park 4th of July parade.

"That should not be legal in the state of Illinois and should not be legal nationally. There's no reason someone should have an assault weapon. It doesn't have a sporting use. It doesn't have a defense use. Plenty of other weapons that can be used for defense and for sporting uses," he said. "We don't need something that can shoot, as this shooter did, 83 cartridges, 83 bullets in less than 60 seconds."

The Democratic Party has for years supermajorities in both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly, yet neither have voted on an assault weapons ban. In the wake of the parade shooting, House Democrats formed a 12-member firearm safety reform working group to suggest new gun laws.

Watch entire Sept. 30 Illinois Associated Press Media Editors forum: