Ted Dabrowski, a conservative policy researcher running for governor in Illinois, believes he will have the appeal in the populous Chicago area required to prevent Gov. JB Pritzker from winning a third term.
Before Dabrowski can take on Pritzker, he’ll have to navigate a four-way Republican primary that includes former state lawmaker and 2022 GOP nominee Darren Bailey, Rick Heidner and James Mendrick.
“We're the only campaign that can build the coalition to beat Pritzker, and so I think we're going to steal the support from the other candidates,” Dabrowski said on the latest episode of Politically Speaking. “But that's the challenge, of course.”
When Republicans start early voting Feb. 5 and go to the polls on March 17 they will have to determine if they want to nominate Bailey, who lost to Pritzker by 12 percentage points in 2022, or pick a new member of their party to take on the Democratic incumbent.
President Donald Trump has not endorsed a candidate in the race. While he’s not courting the president's support, Dabrowski said he wouldn’t turn it down. Trump endorsed Bailey the last time he ran for governor.
So far, Dabrowski is the most well-funded of the four Republicans running, according to Illinois State Board of Elections data. But an early January poll from Emerson College has him trailing Bailey by wide margins. However, a plurality of voters, 46%, said they were undecided.
Recent pushes to get in front of voters via television advertising and classic campaigning have also helped build up his name identification since then, Dabrowski said. He’s also leaning into his Cook County roots and heritage.
“Being half-Latino, half-Polish, I can really reach out to other constituencies that may be a little different for most Republicans,” he said. “I think that's a big deal.”
Dabrowski’s parents immigrated to the U.S. and landed in Chicago in the late 1950s.
He started his career working for Citibank internationally in Mexico and Poland before moving back to Illinois in 2007, where he started working for the Illinois Policy Institute and later Wirepoints. Both are conservative, free-market think tanks that study and research Illinois state government.
An essay Dabrowski wrote about low Black literacy rates in Peoria ended up being cited by the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board in 2022. Later, the article was mentioned in a question to Pritzker during a 2022 gubernatorial debate. Pritzker’s response — calling Wirepoints a “right-wing, carnival barker organization” — prompted Dabrowski to run for office, he said.
“I can't watch Pritzker not address the real problems in Illinois,” Dabrowski said. “He won't acknowledge them, so he won't fix them.”
Key among Dabrowski’s critiques of Pritzker’s nearly eight years as governor center on fiscal and education policy.
Pritzker and the Illinois General Assembly, dominated by Democrats, used $700 million in new tax on goods like tobacco, vape and nicotine products and on sports betting to increase revenue in the state budget signed last June.
“It’s the Democrats. They have supermajorities. They’ve had the governorship — except with (former Gov. Bruce) Rauner,” he said. “All of those problems we have today are on them. And so, if you want change, join us.”
Illinois’ property taxes, which tend to rank as some of the highest in the country, would be the first target of a Dabrowski administration. He’d push legislation that would cap any property taxes above 1% of a home’s value, as Indiana does. Currently, Illinois’ average is 1.83%, according to the think tank Tax Foundation.
Property taxes fund local forms of government in Illinois, school districts being the biggest recipients. Dabrowski believes there are too many units of government in Illinois. In 2022, Illinois had 6,930, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“Listen, I love local government. I love local control,” he said. “I don't like duplicative government and wasteful government.”
While Pritzker and other top Democrats in the Statehouse have suggested increasing income taxes on the wealthiest won’t be on the table this year, Dabrowski said he’d like to take the state in the opposite direction.
He wants to keep the flat income tax rate, which currently stands at 4.95% for individuals, or, similar to Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe’s current proposals, would like to phase out the income tax as other conservative states have done.
“For me, the most important activity that we can have, that we should protect, is labor — work,” he said. “I would love for anybody who works to keep all of their money. We want to incentivize more work.”
Education
The state’s school evidence-based formula has failed, Dabrowski contends.
Signed into law by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner in 2017, the formula directed more dollars to the most underfunded districts. While progress has been made in particular areas, other evidence suggests proficiency rates in reading, writing and math have stagnated in K-12 education.
The spending hasn’t justified the outcomes, Dabrowski argues.
Cash bail
Republicans, Dabrowski included, have long argued that state lawmakers' reform to its criminal justice system enacted in 2021, called the SAFE-T Act, needs to be repealed.
A Chicago woman being lit on fire on public transit last fall by someone who had a lengthy criminal history renewed calls from conservatives to reestablish the cash bail system. Pritzker and other Democrats have suggested they are open to amending the legislation but have not specified how.
“We're trying to make a bad bill less bad.” Dabrowski said. “No, we should get rid of it.”
Energy
Like the SAFE-T Act, Dabrowski also has qualms with the last two massive energy bills passed by the General Assembly in the past five years. While he’s not opposed to renewable energy, Dabrowski believes Illinois has transitioned too fast — and Illinoisans will pay the price in their utility bills.
“Your quality of life in Illinois is just not better under Pritzker,” he said. “Your physical security is at risk. Your economic security is definitely a risk. Opportunity is way down. If you want to improve quality of life, I'm the person that's going to bring that back.”
Editor’s note: St. Louis Public Radio also plans to interview Bailey, Heidner and Mendrick.
