Republican-turned-independent Collin Corbett hopes to provide voters an alternative for governor

SPRINGFIELD — Collin Corbett has spent enough time in politics to know he’s a longshot to pull off a victory as an independent candidate for governor.

“I’m going to push as hard as I can before Nov. 3,” Corbett said in an interview with Capitol News Illinois. “But I’m a political strategist. I can do math. I’m aware of how this will likely turn out at the end of this election.”

But the former Republican strategist said it’s more of a long game.

“I’m 40 years old. I got a long runway ahead, and there’s a ton of people who’ve been coming up to me saying, ‘I don’t know if I can vote for you in this election, but I’m all in for your larger goal of building an independent majority,’” he said. “’So Nov. 4, I’m in, let’s go.’”

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Corbett said his campaign is about proving there is an appetite for independent, centrist candidates in Illinois as voters weigh their options between staunch Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker and Trump-endorsed Republican Darren Bailey.

Corbett last worked for Republicans in the March primary season, including for Don Tracy, the party’s former chair and current nominee for U.S. Senate. But he is taking a hiatus from advising campaigns to mount his own bid for governor.

Independent candidates face a greater challenge to make it on the ballot and often get just a few percentage points of the vote. Corbett said 15% would be enough to make a point and position himself or another candidate to try again in 2030.

Though he’s long been an insider in the nation’s two-party system, he’s now changing his tune.

“We’ve got to start changing things now because the path we’re on — with these two parties that only seem to offer extremes, and they just want to snipe at each other and attack each other instead of actually getting things done — it’s not working for me,” Corbett said.

Independent traits

Corbett said he’s skipped the presidential question on the ballot in the last three general elections and supported John Kasich and Nikki Haley in the 2016 and 2024 primaries respectively — two Republicans who are more often identified as traditional members of the party, separate from Trump’s wing.

Among Illinois political role models, Corbett views himself as “a blending” of late former Gov. Jim Edgar and former Sen. Mark Kirk, who were among the socially moderate, fiscally conservative Republicans who once dominated the state party.

“There are really good people on both sides,” Corbett said. “It’s just this tribalism where my side is good and your side is evil. That’s the thing that’s ruined our politics.”

Corbett, an experienced pollster, said he believes the average Illinois voter is center-right on fiscal policy, but center-left on social issues, “which is exactly where I’ve always been.”

He said he supports marriage equality, abortion rights and more gun control measures. Corbett said Democratic voters “could feel pretty comfortable with where I’m at” on all social issues.

He said he believes in a more conservative fiscal approach but differed from Republicans by supporting a tax on services.

He called the state’s reliance on sales taxes — citing items such as diapers, formula and groceries — “regressive.”

“If we can shift that to services, especially higher-end services, and get it out of the basics, you can not only raise more revenue for the state, which then can use it to lower property taxes, but you can also help those working families in Illinois who are struggling right now,” he said.

Corbett, the father of a two-year old son with another child on the way, praised Pritzker’s focus on early childhood education.

But he said overall that this year’s candidates have spent more time focusing on things happening outside Illinois.

“It seems like both of the major-party candidates are obsessed with Trump and with federal policies,” Corbett said, adding he thinks Pritzker’s constant fights with Trump are causing Illinois to lose federal funding.

Plans for office

Corbett contrasts his positions to those of Bailey, who has called for abolishing the Illinois Tollway, instituting a 1% property tax cap and using a DOGE-style method to root out wasteful spending in state government.

“I wish I had whatever magic beans Darren Bailey is growing on his farm, but unfortunately, I have to live in reality, and in reality, we’ve got to fund our roads, we’ve got to fund our schools, we’ve got to fund our police and fire,” Corbett said.

Corbett also called for diversifying funding for road construction and said the motor fuel tax won’t be sustainable as more electric vehicles join the roads. He said the state should levy a mileage-based tax instead.

On ethics reform, he said the legislative inspector general should be empowered to subpoena and to release its own reports. But more broadly, Corbett said there should be an independent ethics oversight commission that covers all state government, from state workers to elected officials.

One of the biggest issues in state government also hits close to home for the Palatine resident: incentivizing the Bears to build a stadium in Arlington Heights. Corbett got married at the former Arlington Park horse racing track and said he wants the land to be used for something that benefits the public and doesn’t just become another complex of condos that are already prolific throughout northwest Cook County.

Corbett said if he was governor, he would commission a study to determine how the Arlington Heights site would compare to the Hammond site in terms of economic benefit. He said a study like that would be key to convincing skeptical Chicago lawmakers to get on board.

“That study’s never been done because we don’t have a governor who’s actually leading on finding consensus on this issue,” he said.

Inside the campaign

Corbett is running with Carolyn Schofield, a former Republican McHenry County Board member who is president of the county’s mental health board and is also a member of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Until April this year, she was a legislative director for the Illinois Senate Republicans. Schofield also ran for lieutenant governor in 2022 alongside former Republican Sen. Paul Schimpf.

When Corbett filed to run in May, he said he expected strong support from donors and some noteworthy endorsements.

“You’re going to start to see a lot of positive developments on our fundraising,” he said then. “It’s not going to be too long before we pass the Republican candidate on fundraising.”

That hasn’t happened.

He loaned his campaign $500,000 and had more cash on hand than Bailey on July 1. But Bailey has spent more money and reports a steady stream of donors, indicating some level of grassroots support for his campaign.

Corbett has reported just four contributions over $1,000 since July, while Pritzker has dumped more than $90 million into his campaign. Corbett acknowledged that shortcoming and said he hears from many people who would support him, but not in this year’s election. He said some donors also don’t want to be the first to contribute and that’s holding up others.

He also said he didn’t intend to be the candidate.

“We went out actively recruiting somebody who could lead this independent movement in Illinois and we had really good people lined up who had way, way bigger names,” Corbett said. “And unfortunately, for financial reasons and personal reasons, they couldn’t do it towards the end.”

His campaign’s public presence has also been limited. Corbett said he’s holding private meetings with voters and will hold town halls soon. But much of his public campaigning to this point has been limited to news releases and social media posts.

He said that’s by design, as his campaign is “actively targeting” disaffected voters and people who are frustrated by politics.

While his campaign likely poses a greater threat to Bailey’s than to Pritzker’s, his opponents aren’t acknowledging him. Corbett said that makes sense because any criticism would only raise his profile.

Asked last month at the State Fair if Corbett’s campaign poses a threat, Bailey replied, “Who?”

“I think it’s actually just a business model to prove that you know, ‘Hey, you pay me enough money, I can get you on a ballot in the future,’” Illinois Republican Party Chair Bob Grogan told reporters in August.

Independent history

While independent candidates have found electoral viability in states like Maine and Nebraska, history is not on Corbett’s side in Illinois. For one, the state’s two established political parties have long wielded what’s effectively a duopoly in the political arena.

This has its roots in the state’s “We don’t want nobody nobody sent” political culture in which party machines — Democratic in Cook County and Republican much of downstate — dominated state and local government.

Vestiges remain, such as the state law that requires Democratic and Republican candidates for statewide office to collect only 5,000 signatures to obtain ballot access. Independents and third-party candidates, on the other hand, must obtain 25,000.

Third parties can become established political parties if their candidate wins at least 5% in the preceding election. In the past century, this has only happened twice.

First in 1986, when Democrat Adlai Stevenson III won 40% running on the Solidarity Party line — a move to avoid running on a ticket with Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial nominee Mark Fairchild, a follower of conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche. And then in 2006, when Green Party nominee Rich Whitney secured 10%. Neither candidate won, and the parties were unable to maintain their established status following the next election.

The last true independent on the ballot for governor was Scott Lee Cohen in 2010. He won 135,705 votes, about 3.64% of the statewide share, despite having withdrawn as the Democratic Party’s lieutenant governor nominee earlier that year amid domestic violence allegations. In 2002, independent Marisellis Brown received 23,089 votes, or 0.65%. And in 1932, independent W.W. O’Brien got 1,182 votes, or 0.03%.

Despite this history, Corbett believes he has a lane that’s reliant on convincing independents and moderates that an independent candidate is viable.

He said he expects his election night margins to “surprise people what kind of strength is out there for a centrist mainstream type of movement.”

“I know on election night the number is going to be higher than frankly anybody expects it to be,” Corbett said. “Does that mean it’s going to be enough to win the race? We’ll find out.”

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.