Illinois governor’s race: Collin Corbett, an ex-GOP strategist, hopes to find votes from those in the middle – Chicago Tribune

Illinois governor’s race: Collin Corbett, an ex-GOP strategist, hopes to find votes from those in the middle  Chicago Tribune

Collin Corbett, a former Republican strategist from Palatine, is the first independent on the Illinois ballot for governor in 16 years. He concedes he's unlikely to beat JB Pritzker or Darren Bailey but aims to give centrist voters a voice. After Illinois Democrats trounced Republicans in the last midterm election, political consultant Collin Corbett had a message for fellow members of the GOP. Pointing to exit polling commissioned by his firm, Cor Strategies, Corbett argued his party’s latest drubbing wasn’t because Illinois had become an uber-liberal bastion. It was largely because Republicans had ceded the political center, home to almost 40% of Illinois voters who identified as “moderate,” a share similar to what Associated Press polling also found in 2022.

“The Republican strategy of screaming ‘the sky is falling’ and ‘all is lost’ is clearly not working,” Corbett wrote in a blog post that year. “The voters in this state aren’t hyper-partisans or (ideologues). They just want things to get done — they’re not interested in the drama and hyperbole.” Four years later, Corbett has stopped trying to convince Republicans to tack to the center and instead is testing his theory himself with a long-shot independent bid for governor. The 40-year-old Palatine resident is the first independent candidate in 16 years to qualify for the general election ballot for governor,