Illinois GOP Senate candidates take stage in first major debate
[February 13, 2026]
By Brenden Moore
SPRINGFIELD — If the Democratic primary to replace retiring U.S. Sen.
Dick Durbin has been the main event in Illinois politics over the past
year, the Republican contest has largely played the undercard.
But, at least for one night, the race finally came under the bright
lights.
During an hourlong debate hosted by ABC-7 Chicago in partnership with
Univision and the League of Women Voters on Wednesday evening, three
candidates in the six-person field pitched themselves as best equipped
to flip the seat red after more than four decades in Democratic hands.
The candidates — information technology professional Casey Chlebek,
corporate attorney Jeannie Evans and former Illinois Republican Party
Chairman Don Tracy — stopped short of criticizing President Donald Trump
directly but registered their disagreement with his call to
“nationalize” voting and to his approach to tariffs.
Experience or new face?
The last Republican to hold Illinois’ Class 2 U.S. Senate seat was Sen.
Charles Percy, who served three terms until his defeat by
then-Democratic U.S. Rep. Paul Simon in 1984. Simon was later succeeded
by Durbin, who’s held the seat since 1997. Sen. Mark Kirk was the last
Republican to represent Illinois in the upper chamber, serving a single
term from 2011 to 2017 — and losing his reelection bid to now-U.S. Sen.
Tammy Duckworth.
This year, the GOP race is wide open. A January poll found that 84% of
primary voters were undecided. Tracy led the field with just 6% support
while no other candidate registered more than 3% support.
Tracy, a Springfield attorney who served as party chair from 2021 to
2024, said the open contest presents a “terrific opportunity” for the
GOP to win back a statewide office, but it “will not be easy” in a state
that’s become safely Democratic in recent federal elections.
“It will be an uphill dog fight because the Democrats will have a lot
more money than the Republican candidate,” Tracy, an unsuccessful 2010
GOP candidate for lieutenant governor, said. “And for that reason, it is
certainly no job for a political novice.”
Tracy is mostly self-funding his campaign, having loaned himself $2
million in August. He had roughly the same amount on hand at the
beginning of the year, according to federal campaign finance reports,
placing him far above the other candidates in the race.
Evans, a Chicago attorney who specializes in anti-trust law, was his
closest competitor, starting the year with nearly $300,000 on hand after
raising more than $500,000, about 80% of it self-funded.
Chlebek, a native of Poland who immigrated to the United States as a
teenager in the late 1960s, was an unsuccessful candidate for the GOP
nominations for U.S. Senate in 2020 and 2022. He’s self-funded to the
tune of about $100,000.
Unlike Tracy and Chlebek, Evans’ name has never appeared on the ballot
before. She used that to cast herself as the “political outsider” in the
race.
“It’s time for a fresh face of the Republican Party in Illinois,” Evans
said. “I am ready to work hard to motivate people with conservative
values across our entire state to come out to vote in November.”
The issues
None of the three candidates directly answered when asked to identify an
area in which they disagreed with Trump, who has lost Illinois by
double-digit margins in three consecutive elections. A recent poll
placed Trump’s overall approval rating at just 39% in Illinois, though
84% of Republican voters approved of his job performance.
However, disagreements with the president emerged when specific topics
came up.
Evans said tariffs imposed by Trump “achieved some good results” but
acknowledged that she’s “a free market economist” who believes they
should only be used in “specific situations or to achieve certain goals”
in the short term.
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Republican candidates for U.S. Senate participate in a debate hosted
by hosted by ABC-7 Chicago in partnership with Univision and the
League of Women Voters on Feb. 11, 2026. (Screenshot of ABC-7’s
debate feed)
Tracy said that the U.S. has “been subsidizing the world, including
China and Europe, for way too long,” but that “the jury’s still out” on
if Trump’s tariff regime will achieve its policy aims of more equitable
trade deals and the onshoring of manufacturing jobs.
Chlebek said tariffs are “a tool” that shouldn’t be used “in an
arbitrary fashion.”
A verdict is expected to be rendered soon by the U.S. Supreme Court on a
lawsuit challenging Trump’s ability to impose tariffs without
congressional approval.
All three said they would support a proposal that would require voters
to present valid photo identification to vote but stopped short of
supporting Trump’s recent call to nationalize elections, which are run
by states under the U.S. Constitution.
“With 50 states, it’s hard to hack,” Tracy said.
Evans said she sees “some room for federal standards,” but supports
states running their own elections.
Chlebek also stressed the importance of institutions like the United
Nations and NATO that have come under attack by Trump and some
Republicans in recent years.
“We have to be careful as far as removing our relationship with the rest
of the world,” Chlebek said. “We have to make sure that international
institutions are preserved because it serves our interests.”
Minimum wage, other topics
The federal minimum wage has been $7.25 per hour since 2009, while
Illinois’ has been $15 for about a year. All three major Democratic
candidates in the race have called for the federal wage to increase
anywhere from $17 to $25.
But the Republicans said they are just fine leaving it as-is.
Tracy said he was concerned that a wage increase would impact employment
opportunities for teenagers and developmentally disabled people.
“It’s the bottom rung of the success ladder and that’s why the focus is
misplaced on the minimum wage,” Tracy said. “We need to be focusing on
real wages.”
Tracy also said that new requirements for food assistance in the One Big
Beautiful Bill Act signed by Trump last year were “long overdue,” citing
“too many able-bodied Americans out of the labor force living off of
welfare.”
Evans said she would propose “to peel back regulations and taxes that
burden companies” instead of raising the price floor.
Evans and Tracy each said they would not support a national abortion ban
and leave that decision to individual states. Chlebek did not answer the
question. All support the U.S. staying in the UN and NATO.
Tracy said he supported Trump’s pardons of people convicted of crimes
connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which
disrupted the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 Electoral College
victory and resulted injuries to more than 100 police officers and
extensive physical damage to the building. Evans sidestepped the
question, saying “it’s 2026, I’m moving forward.” Chlebek said he did
not support the pardons.
Chlebek, Evans and Tracy were chosen to participate based on factors
such as fundraising and having a functioning campaign website. R. Cary
Capparelli, Pamela Denise Long and Jimmy Lee Tillman II are seeking the
Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Early voting has commenced, and
the primary election is March 17.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government
coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. |
