November 4, 2014 2018 → 50.27% 46.35% | 1,823,627 1,681,343 | |
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The 2014 Illinois gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 2014, to elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, concurrently with the election to Illinois' Class II U.S. Senate seat, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
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Incumbent Democratic Governor Pat Quinn ran for re-election to a second full term in office. Quinn, the then-Lieutenant Governor, assumed the office of Governor on January 29, 2009, when Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office. He was narrowly elected to a first full term in 2010. Primary elections were held on March 18, 2014. Quinn was renominated by the Democrats, while the Republicans chose businessman and venture capitalist Bruce Rauner and the Libertarians nominated political activist Chad Grimm.
Previously in Illinois, there were separate primary elections for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, with the winners then running together on the same ticket. In 2011, the law was changed and candidates for Governor now pick their own running mate. Incumbent Democratic Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon did not run for re-election, instead running unsuccessfully for Comptroller. She was replaced as Quinn's running mate by former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas. Rauner chose Wheaton City Councilwoman Evelyn Sanguinetti and Grimm chose Alex Cummings.
Rauner defeated Quinn in the general election by 50.3% of the vote to Quinn's 46.4%. Rauner won every county in Illinois except for Cook County, home to the city of Chicago and 40% of the state's residents. Quinn was the only Democratic governor to lose re-election in the general election in 2014.
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Republican primary
By early summer 2013, the field seeking the Republican nomination was set at four candidates. Two of them, State Senators Bill Brady and Kirk Dillard, had sought the nomination in 2010, with Brady edging out Dillard by 193 votes, but ultimately losing to Pat Quinn by less than 1 percent. Dan Rutherford, who was elected state treasurer in 2010 after serving as a State Representative and State Senator, formally entered the race on June 2.
Rauner had announced the formation of an exploratory committee in March and made his entry into the Republican field official on June 5. Despite longstanding rumors that Rauner was committed to spending $50 million on his campaign, he denied in an interview ever specifying a dollar figure.
By the date of the primary, Rauner had broken the previous record for self-funding in an Illinois gubernatorial race by putting more than $6 million of his own money into his campaign. In total, he raised more than $14 million before the primary election.
On March 18, 2014, Rauner won the Republican primary, collecting 40% of the vote, compared to 37% for State Senator Kirk Dillard.