Darren Bailey's running mate told a crowd at a Save America rally in Springfield that nobody wants Illinois to become a mecca for people to travel here and sin against God by getting an abortion. Aaron Del Mar's remarks, delivered during a six-minute speech at the rally, land at a moment when the Republican ticket has been trying to steer its message toward affordability and away from the social issues that dogged Bailey's failed 2022 campaign against Governor JB Pritzker.
Del Mar's comments, first reported by WBEZ, came at an event sponsored by Illinois Family Action, the political arm of the Illinois Family Institute, which lobbies against bills expanding abortion access in Springfield. Del Mar, who is Bailey's running mate in the 2026 governor's race, also said at the rally that Governor Pritzker is willing to murder millions of babies, according to the station's report. Bailey and Del Mar spoke at the same event, and Del Mar has previously told WBEZ that claims Bailey and Del Mar will strip away women's access to reproductive care are a flat-out lie.
A Campaign Trying to Change the Subject
The rhetoric stands in tension with how the campaign has been describing its own priorities. Del Mar told WBEZ in July that the campaign is talking about core services rather than abortion or transgender issues, and the same report notes that abortion is not on Bailey and Del Mar's legislative agenda this time around. Bailey, for his part, has omitted abortion from his policy platform this cycle after campaigning on restricting abortion access during his 2022 run, when he also campaigned on expanding gun rights.
Del Mar has said Bailey changed the public-facing campaign after learning from mistakes made four years ago, per the same account. That earlier campaign saw Bailey lose to Pritzker by 12 percentage points and underperform badly in Cook County and the collar counties — a defeat that WBEZ notes was compounded by Bailey referring to Chicago as a hellhole in 2022, a remark he has since apologized for. Bailey and Del Mar are now focusing on affordability as their central pitch to voters, even as Bailey has, according to the station's reporting, dialed back his stance on abortion since the last election.
Not Everyone on the Right Is Convinced
The dialed-back posture has not fully satisfied social conservatives. Illinois Family Action withheld its endorsement of Bailey during the March primaries, instead backing Ted Dabrowski, president of a conservative think tank who ultimately lost to Bailey by 24 percentage points. The group had donated to Bailey's 2022 campaign but this time also invited Republican U.S. Senate candidate Don Tracy to its rally alongside Bailey and Del Mar. Tracy has said, per Illinois Public Media, that he does not support nationalizing abortion law.
Bailey has continued to court that base elsewhere. He spoke at a Christian conference in Decatur in May, where he said he is more pro-life and pro-second amendment than anyone else at the event — a claim that sits uneasily next to the campaign's public insistence that abortion is not part of its 2026 platform.
Pritzker Campaign Seizes on the Comments
A spokesperson for Pritzker's campaign said Bailey and Del Mar are spreading the extreme MAGA agenda by attacking women's right to choose, and separately accused the pair of spreading far-right conspiracy theories while supporting President Trump's economic agenda. Bailey and Del Mar's campaign did not return requests for comment on the Springfield remarks, according to WBEZ. Bailey is running against Pritzker, an incumbent and self-funded billionaire who is seeking an historic third term, in a rematch that Illinois has not seen at the gubernatorial level in 40 years.
The Policy Backdrop in Illinois
The gap between Del Mar's personal rhetoric and Illinois' actual legal landscape is stark. Under the Illinois Reproductive Health Act of 2019 and subsequent 2023 shield laws, abortion is codified as a fundamental right in state law, protections that shield both providers and out-of-state patients from legal action initiated by other states, according to FindLaw. Those protections have made Illinois a magnet for patients living under bans elsewhere: Guttmacher Institute data cited by The 19th shows roughly 32,000 out-of-state patients traveled to Illinois for abortion care in 2025, nearly a quarter of all interstate abortion travel nationwide, keeping the state the top destination in the country for three straight years.
State health data underscores the scale of that shift. Illinois Department of Public Health vital statistics show 72,143 total abortions performed in the state in 2023, with 26,168 of those provided to out-of-state residents — up from just 7,534 out-of-state patients in 2019. That backdrop is what Del Mar appeared to be invoking when he warned against Illinois becoming what he called a mecca for people traveling here for the procedure.
A Ticket Wrestling With Its Own Message
Neither Bailey nor Del Mar have signaled any legislative push to change that framework this cycle, and Del Mar has repeatedly told reporters abortion is not part of the platform. But his Springfield remarks suggest the personal convictions driving the ticket's base have not disappeared even as the public messaging shifts toward fiscal issues. Bailey and Del Mar have also leaned into ethics themes lately, calling for an Illinois DOGE fiscal audit unit and open-records rules for non-profits receiving state grants after the federal indictment of Democratic state Rep. Carol Ammons — part of an effort to make the November election about government spending rather than social policy.
The Republican ticket also includes Don Tracy, who won the GOP Senate primary in March and faces Democratic Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton for the seat retiring Senator Dick Durbin is vacating. Pritzker, meanwhile, picked former deputy governor Christian Mitchell as his running mate after Stratton launched her Senate bid. With the election set for November 3, both campaigns are positioning their tickets well ahead of a rematch that will test whether Bailey's rebranded, affordability-focused approach can overcome the deficits that sank him in 2022 — or whether moments like Del Mar's Springfield speech will keep abortion at the center of the race regardless.
