On one of the last warm evenings of the year, Republican state senator and candidate for governor Darren Bailey completed his Illinois bus tour in Grayslake to encourage voter turnout as Election Day approaches.

In just under an hour, Bailey and other speakers, including his running mate Stephanie Trussell, reminded a crowd of a few dozen why they believe Bailey is the right candidate for governor.

“J.B. Pritzker thinks he’s going to rebuild our economy … he’s wrong. One hundred forty thousand people didn’t flee this state because they thought Darren Bailey might be governor one day,” Trussell said. “We’re talking about the real issues, crime, taxes, the economy, things that are driving people away.”

Pritzker has routinely countered Bailey and Trussell’s claims on the campaign trail and on his website.

Bailey told the crowd at the Oct. 23 rally that safety and education are top on his agenda.

“We can return safety to our streets. We can take our schools back. … We’ll be firing the entire state board of education,” Bailey said while receiving cheers and rounds of applause.

Although Bailey is running as a Republican, he told the Chronicle he is trying to unite instead of divide voters, and not pay attention to who is liberal and who is not.

“Everyone, the youth as a whole, seems to be coming out because they see the future of this state is being threatened. … Everyone seems to be pretty focused on college tuition,” Bailey said. “They want to stay here in Illinois and unfortunately, college tuition is a little too high here in Illinois.”

As the climate changes, Bailey, a farmer himself, also recognizes this is a concern for farmers.

“Farmers are some of the most concerned about the climate of all,” Bailey said.

Bailey has adapted some of his farming techniques by using filter strips to keep water and streams clean and incorporating organic farming and rotational farming with chicken manure.

“Our farm this year is about 10% organic. We try to rotate between non-GMOs,” Bailey said. “We’d like to be more organic, but these things take time.”

However, in regard to implementing this standard for Illinois agriculture, Bailey said as the minority spokesperson on the Senate’s Agriculture Committee, his biggest goal is to keep regulations down.

“If we keep upping regulations, it makes it difficult for farmers to farm … and then they move to South America, and [that] increases our cost of food,” Bailey said.

Kathy Taylor, 53, of Mundelein, who works in a grocery store as an essential worker, said she is frustrated with Pritzker after how he handled the pandemic.

“[I’ve] been disgusted with what’s going on. Being shut down like we were, it was really rough what I went through because of stuff that Pritzker did, and taxes, just every mistake I feel like the guy is making, and I really want to see a change,” Taylor said.

Scott Taylor, 58, Kathy’s husband, said he supports Bailey because of his stand on not raising taxes.

“I can’t afford to live in my house anymore if it keeps going up,” said Taylor, who has lived in his same house for 32 years.

Ed Moscatelli, 66, of Round Lake, said he is drawn to Bailey because of his Christian values.

“I like his Godliness. That’s where we got everything so he puts that first,” Moscatelli said. “The United States was founded on the Bible, so that is where our roots come from, so we’re just trying to keep them there.”

Bailey’s opponent, incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker, is currently leading the polls by 13.5 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s latest polling data from Oct. 26.