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's 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.
Prior to this cycle, candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor were nominated separately, and the primary winners ran on the same ticket in the general election. In 2011, the law was changed to allow candidates for Governor to pick their own running mates. Incumbent Democratic Lieutenant Governor Sheila Simon did not run for reelection, instead running unsuccessfully for comptroller. She was replaced as Quinn's running mate by Paul Vallas, a former CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Rauner chose Wheaton City Councilwoman Evelyn Sanguinetti as his running mate and Grimm chose Alex Cummings.
Incumbent Democratic Governor Pat Quinn ran for re-election to a second full term in office. Quinn, then the Lieutenant Governor, assumed the office of Governor on January 29, 2009, upon the impeachment and removal of Rod Blagojevich. He narrowly won a full term in 2010. Primary elections were held on March 18, 2014. Quinn won the Democratic primary, while the Republicans chose businessman Bruce Rauner and the Libertarians nominated political activist Chad Grimm.
Rauner defeated Quinn in the general election with 50.3% of the vote to Quinn's 46.4%, winning every county in the state except for Cook County, home to the city of Chicago and 40% of the state's residents. Quinn was the only incumbent Democratic governor to lose a general election in 2014 and remained the last one to do so until Nevada's Steve Sisolak in 2022.
As of , this alongside the concurrent Comptroller election is the only time Republicans won a statewide election in Illinois since Mark Kirk was elected to the Senate in 2010. It is also the only time a Republican has been elected governor of the state in the 21st century.
Election information
The primaries and general elections coincided with those for federal (House and Senate) and those for other state offices. The election was part of the 2014 Illinois elections.
Turnout
For the primary election, turnout was 16.88%, with 1,267,028 votes cast. For the general election, turnout was 48.48%, with 3,627,690 votes cast.
Democratic primary
Candidates
Declared
Tio Hardiman, former director of CeaseFire
Running mate: Brunell Donald, attorney, author and motivational speaker. Pat Quinn, incumbent Governor of Illinois Running mate: Paul Vallas, former CEO of Chicago Public Schools and candidate for governor in 2002
Withdrew
William M. Daley, former White House Chief of Staff and former United States Secretary of Commerce
Declined
John Atkinson, businessman
Tom Dart, Cook County Sheriff
Alexi Giannoulias, former Illinois Treasurer and nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2010 David H. Hoffman, member of the Illinois Reform Commission, former Chicago Inspector General and candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2010 Daniel Hynes, former Illinois Comptroller, candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and candidate for Governor in 2010 Lisa Madigan, Illinois Attorney General (running for re-election) Toni Preckwinkle, President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners Kwame Raoul, state senator
Endorsements
Polling
Results
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.