SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (CBS/AP) — State Sen. Bill Brady (R-Bloomington) has won the Republican gubernatorial nomination for governor, and his closest opponent, state Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) has conceded the race.
The state Board of Elections voted Friday morning to declare the results from the Feb. 2 primary official. They said Brady won by 193 votes.
Brady’s closest opponent, state Sen. Kirk Dillard said in a news release Friday that it was a close race but that Brady ended up the winner.
Dillard says he’ll do whatever he can to help Brady defeat Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn in November. They will also be up against Green Party candidate Rich Whitney.
Brady would offer voters a stark contrast with Quinn. Quinn is a Chicago resident familiar to voters across the state from his year as governor and his long history as a consumer activist. Brady is a Bloomington state senator and little-known in the Chicago region, where most voters live.
Quinn is a liberal on social issues and an outspoken advocate of raising taxes to help maintain state services. Brady opposes abortion and gun control and maintains that government spending should be slashed to close the biggest deficit in Illinois history.
Quinn’s experience is serving in public office or acting as a government watchdog and consumer advocate. Brady is a businessman and real estate developer who has spent 17 years in the Illinois Legislature.
Brady has already been taking aim at Quinn for some time. On Thursday, he tried to link Quinn’s early release of prison inmates to a fatal Springfield shooting, although he couldn’t explain just what he believed Quinn did wrong.
Brady said Jonathon Phillips, now in the Sangamon County Jail facing a murder charge, should still have been in prison for vehicular hijacking when he was accused of fatally shooting 24-year-old William Suggs Dec. 10. Instead, he was released after serving nearly three years on a six-year sentence.
Nothing indicates Phillips was part of the secret “MGT Push” release program that turned into a political embarrassment for Quinn. The administration says Phillips was not released improperly, but Brady disputed that, saying “they absolutely did something incorrect.”
Brady has also attacked Quinn on his handling of the state budget, and has called for across-the-board cuts rather than a tax hike as Quinn favors.
But Brady has also drawn consternation from opponents for some legislation he has introduced since the primary, including a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage and civil unions in Illinois, and a bill that would allow for animal shelters to use gas chambers to euthanize multiple unwanted dogs and cats. Brady later backed away from the euthanasia bill.
Normally, the results of a primary are clear on election day, but officials said this race was perhaps the closest statewide election in Illinois history. Brady captured 20.26 percent of the vote in the GOP primary, while Dillard got 20.24 percent and five other candidates divided the rest.
The 193-vote margin amounts to 25 one-thousandths of 1 percent of all votes cast in the Republican race.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.
