Don Tracy, the former chair of the Illinois Republican Party and scion of the family that owns the largest food redistributor in North America, wants to be the next U.S. senator from Illinois.
The 75-year-old Springfield lawyer said his background makes him particularly qualified to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield.
“I want to put my years of experience in the real world to work in Washington, D.C., to work on reducing the cost of living, champion Midwestern values and represent all of Illinois, not just Chicago,” Tracy told Illinois Times.
The candidacy comes at a time when the Illinois GOP is struggling, having failed to win a statewide race in a decade. The party is also plagued by infighting between the group’s right wing and the remainder of the party.
Last year, after more than three years at the helm of the party, Tracy quit. He had been elected in a contentious vote of the 17-person Illinois Republican State Central Committee following the Jan. 6 riot in the nation’s capital.
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“In better days, Illinois Republicans came together after tough intra-party elections,” Tracy wrote at the time of his resignation. “Now, however, we have Republicans who would rather fight other Republicans than engage in the harder work of defeating incumbent Democrats by convincing swing voters to vote Republican.”
But now, party members seem to welcome Tracy’s candidacy for the nation’s upper house.
”I think Republicans will come together. They’re not going to vote for a Democrat. So, whether he can get those crossover votes is really the question, and it will be difficult for him,” said former state Rep. Jeanne Ives, a conservative within the party. “The grassroots and some conservatives were not in favor of him continuing as the chair of the Republican party. At the same time, I have a lot of respect for Don Tracy, and especially the company that he and his family have built. He’s a respectful, decent man, and he’ll be right on the policies. And so hopefully people will come together behind him.”
Patrick Pfingsten, who publishes the Illinoize political newsletter, said a Tracy candidacy is a means for the GOP not to embarrass itself by otherwise nominating a not-ready-for-prime-time candidate.
”I’ve heard from a pollster that a Republican candidate in the state essentially starts down 12 points right now,” he said. “That’s a huge gap to make up. He’s not a dumb guy. He is a smart, serious, decent guy, and he knows it’s an uphill battle.”
So, why does a talented, wealthy lawyer choose to spend his golden years taking on such a Herculean task?
“I think Don is at a place in his life where he feels like he can still do more in public life,” Pfingsten said. “Also, as a party guy, a Republican party stalwart (he’s one of) a certain number of Republicans out there who are desperately hoping that the party won’t embarrass itself, and when the party is dangerously close to embarrassing itself, those grownups – those elder statesmen – have to step up and do something. This is Don’s way of stepping up and doing something.”
Three Democrats are vying for their party’s nomination for the Senate seat: Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly.
Conventional wisdom is that midterm congressional elections tend to favor the political party out of the White House. However, Tracy said that is no longer a given.
“In the Trump era, conventional wisdom has been more often wrong than right,” Tracy said. “If the economy tanks next summer because the Trump peace and prosperity agenda didn’t work, I think conventional wisdom will win out. On the other hand, if the economy is doing very, very well, like it was doing in the last year of the first Trump term, then I like my odds – particularly if the three Democrats have a vicious, bloody, robust primary that leaves the Illinois Democrat Party divided.”
Tracy’s platform is typical Republican fare: lower taxes, less government regulation.
“I’ll focus on the underlying factors or root causes of cost-of-living increases,” he said. “We have too much regulation, which increases the cost of private enterprise, government and households. High taxes increase the cost of living. High interest rates increase the cost of living. Probably the biggest increase in the cost of living that people have noticed recently are in their utility bills. And that’s because of bad federal energy policy like pushing for solar and wind.
“I think it’s good to have diverse energy sources, but not to the detriment of a reliable energy grid. The national policy has been basically a war on fossil fuels, which provide the most reliable, widespread and cheapest energy source by far. We’ve been spending billions subsidizing green energies, which we were moving toward anyway. We need to move toward (them), but it can’t be at the expense of the grid and our pocketbooks. We can’t bankrupt our people rushing into this this new era.”
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This article appears in August 28-September 3, 2025.
LOL! The Illinois Republican Party really isn’t Republican What so ever. And Neither is Don Tracy who donates to Joe Biden.
Crazy people in the comments again.
Can you document that he donates to Joe Biden? This is truly a question and not some backhanded comment.