For most of Illinois’ history, the lieutenant governor has been a political afterthought, an officeholder whose unofficial title has been “lite gov” and whose main duty has been to stand ready should the governor die, become incapacitated or be removed from office.

This year, the No. 2 job carries outsize stakes on both tickets.

If Gov. JB Pritzker wins a third term, attention will quickly turn to whether he runs for president in 2028. That would place greater responsibility on his running mate, Democrat Christian Mitchell of Chicago, a former state representative and top Pritzker aide who would become governor if Pritzker wins the White House.

On the Republican side, Aaron Del Mar of Palatine has been far more prominent than a typical running mate, serving as something of an interpreter on Chicago-area and suburban issues for Darren Bailey, the downstate farmer and former state lawmaker who lost to Pritzker four years ago.

“Del Mar, he can speak Republican suburbanese. … One of his functions in the campaign is to say, ‘Well, Bailey understands the suburbs, and I’m going to be here to help him understand it even better.’ So I view him as ticket balancing,” said Kent Redfield, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois Springfield. “Politically, Pritzker doesn’t need Mitchell to strengthen the ticket, so to speak. That should not be a problem. Why Mitchell makes sense is because of his experience as deputy governor, as a legislator.”

Mitchell, who replaced Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton on the ticket after she launched her U.S. Senate bid, would bring a long resume to the job: three terms in the Illinois House and four years as a Pritzker deputy governor, a role in which he helped negotiate some big legislative wins.

Del Mar, a former Palatine village councilman and past chair of the Cook County Republican Party, owns a few businesses and holds two local offices in the northwest suburbs.

Christian Mitchell

More than 20 years younger than Pritzker, the 40-year-old Mitchell could serve as a bridge to a newer generation of voters and future leaders of the state Democratic Party. In 2018, he served as the party’s executive director, the first African American to hold the post.

“What the governor said to Juliana Stratton … and has said to me, is, ‘You’ve got to be ready to step in,’” Mitchell said, adding he doesn’t think about the prospect of Pritzker running for president in 2028. “I think that my job right now is to be lieutenant governor, and that’s the job I’m focused on doing.”

Mitchell, who is single and lives in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, was raised in Westchester and Maywood by a single mother who was a nurse and a grandfather who served in the Army. On one of his Instagram profiles, he calls himself a foodie, a boxing fan and an “Unabashed Nerd.” He attended the University of Chicago and earned a law degree from Loyola University Chicago in 2019.

He got involved in activism as a University of Chicago student, as well as with a group called Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, which has advocated for low-income neighborhoods on social justice and quality-of-life issues. He later served as a top aide to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and worked on campaigns for former Chicago Ald. Will Burns, former Attorney General Lisa Madigan and former President Barack Obama.

When Mitchell decided to run for office, Burns, who had held the House seat and got to know Mitchell through his campus activism, said he gave him some basic advice.

“Your reputation means a lot,” Burns said, “and if you have a reputation of someone who doesn’t do what they say they’re going to do, it’s hard for people to work with you.”

Mitchell was 26 when he took office in 2013, the year Illinois legalized same-sex marriage after a 40-year push by gay rights advocates. He was among several freshman lawmakers who co-sponsored the measure, which passed the House with 61 votes, one more than needed.

“As a Black man in America, when someone’s civil rights are being impugned because of an immutable characteristic, something that they were born with and born as, that’s a real problem for me, because that was done to people who look like me for a long time. And that’s what this is about,” Mitchell said.

Passage wasn’t easy, he said, particularly given pushback from Black faith leaders and congregations.

That same year, he voted for a sweeping overhaul of the state’s government worker pension systems, which unions said was unfair to employees and retirees. The Illinois Supreme Court later struck it down as unconstitutional.

“It was the most difficult vote I’d ever taken. You know, (the) court made its ruling, and it was very clear, and it’s — I certainly wouldn’t vote that way again,” he said. “What the court also said is, ‘Hey, listen, like, this is what has to happen. The pensions need to be funded.’ … We’ve got to figure out how we are going to address our pension system going forward.”

Mitchell won reelection in 2014, but only after beating Democratic challenger Jhatayn “Jay” Travis, who was backed by unions including the Chicago Teachers Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, in a primary.

Early in his legislative career, Mitchell pushed for decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, and in 2017 he proposed eliminating cash bail. Both ideas became law, including eliminating cash bail after Pritzker took office in 2019. But early in his House tenure, Mitchell also helped pass a measure toughening penalties for people convicted of violent mob attacks organized through social media.

As deputy governor, Mitchell was Pritzker’s lead strategist on the 2021 Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, one of the nation’s most ambitious clean energy laws, which set a goal of moving Illinois off fossil fuels by 2050. He also helped negotiate Rebuild Illinois, the $45 billion, multiyear capital plan to improve roads and bridges; the legalization of recreational marijuana; and the January 2023 ban on certain high-powered guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Mitchell left the administration later that year to become vice president for civic engagement at the University of Chicago, a post he held until Pritzker picked him as his running mate last year. Also in 2023, he joined the Illinois National Guard, where he is now a captain and serves as a judge advocate.

As lieutenant governor, Mitchell said, he would focus on the office’s Rural Affairs Council, which addresses quality-of-life issues for farmers and other rural Illinoisans, especially as federal budget cuts by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans take hold.

He also wants to work with the Illinois Main Street program, which helps towns revitalize their downtowns. Founded in 1993 by then-Lt. Gov. Bob Kustra, a Republican, the program lost state funding around the time of the 2015-17 budget impasse between then-Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, and then-House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Democrat. The lieutenant governor’s office has since relaunched it in partnership with the state’s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, a Stratton spokesperson said.

“So how can we lower your costs? How can you raise the quality of your healthcare, raise the quality of your wages? Make sure you have a grocery store and a hospital, no matter where you live?” Mitchell said in an interview this month. “Those are things that myself and JB want to get done in term three.”

Some who have worked with Mitchell describe him as bright and hardworking; others say he can be arrogant. Mitchell said he believes criticism of his demeanor likely stems from his time as deputy governor, when he was in the middle of complex and contentious issues.

“I will never apologize for being a tough negotiator on behalf of taxpayers and ratepayers,” Mitchell said. “Are there times when I spoke when I should have listened? Absolutely. Am I a different person now than I was when I was 35 or 25, for God’s sake, when I first got in the legislature? Absolutely. And for anyone who wants to have a conversation about how we move forward in a better way, I’m very open to that conversation.”

Aaron Del Mar

When Bailey chose Del Mar as his running mate, it formed the Illinois political world’s version of “The Odd Couple.”

“When I first met Darren Bailey, I thought he was a sharecropper. When he first met me, he thought I was a troublemaker that was loud, hostile and uncooperative from the city,” the 48-year-old Del Mar, flanked by Bailey, told a small crowd at a church on Chicago’s South Side on Oct. 6. “Now we’re running together because one can’t live without the other.”

Four years ago, a Bailey-Del Mar partnership would have seemed especially unlikely: Del Mar was the running mate for one of Bailey’s primary opponents, businessman Gary Rabine of Bull Valley. Bailey won the nomination with the help of Trump’s endorsement, while Rabine finished fourth.

Last year, Del Mar was considering a run for governor when he heard from Bailey’s team. At first, he was reluctant because the two didn’t always see eye to eye.

“I didn’t really want to sit down with Darren,” Del Mar said in an interview earlier this month. “We had a really good conversation. It was a little challenging at first. You know, we kind of got out some of that bad blood, and then we talked about our vision.”

As Bailey’s No. 2, Del Mar said he would want to oversee how state grant money is disbursed and whether it is a good use of tax dollars. He has emphasized the issue especially since July’s federal indictment of Democratic state Rep. Carol Ammons of Urbana, whom prosecutors accuse of financial misconduct, including improperly using state grant money. Ammons has pleaded not guilty to charges of making a false statement to authorities, wire fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

“Until we figure out clearly how Illinois taxpayers’ money is being spent and provide some transparency, we shouldn’t be going back asking for more money,” Del Mar said.

An entrepreneur whose businesses include an event-planning company, Del Mar said he wants to work with small businesses to keep them in Illinois. He also wants to lead efforts to recruit the “best and the brightest” to serve on state boards and commissions.

Rauner appointed Del Mar to the board of the Illinois International Port District, where he served for a time. He is now the Palatine Township highway commissioner and president of the Inverness Fire Protection District Board of Trustees.

Del Mar grew up on Chicago’s Northwest Side before his family moved to Palatine when he was a child. His mother was a nurse, and his father, who was from the Philippines, was a mechanical engineer.

He competed as a wrestler at Indiana University and graduated in 2001. He also earned All-American honors in judo and in the early 2000s, he trained for judo competitions at an Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, according to an online biography of Del Mar.

Around 2009, back in Palatine, Del Mar said, he got upset about local officials going along with the “irresponsible building” of high-density townhomes near his parents’ house. He said he felt “incredibly disrespected” when he tried to raise the issue with a local official, and he was already interested in a career in local government policy. He won a seat on the Palatine Village Council and served from 2009 to 2013.

He has also served two stints as chair of the Cook County GOP during a period when Republican influence has dwindled in suburban Cook and the collar counties.

“I think that Republicans are portrayed in a really negative light,” he said during the Oct. 6 church event. “And my argument to that is that there’s good police officers and there’s bad police officers. There’s good nurses and there’s bad nurses. There’s good politicians, there’s bad politicians.”

Pat Brady, who chaired the Illinois Republican Party from 2009 to 2013 and consulted for the Rabine-Del Mar campaign in 2022, said Del Mar’s relationships in northern Illinois could be a big help to Bailey. Bailey’s first campaign for governor likely fell short in part because he lacked those relationships, some political observers have said.

“Aaron’s a very shrewd, I think an effective political operator,” Brady said. “He knows politics. He knows a lot of people. He knows how to campaign. He knows how to message. And he’s got a good story, too.”

That story has also had turbulent chapters.

In the early 2000s, Del Mar had his first child with a woman he had dated briefly, sparking a contentious, yearslong custody battle that ended with Del Mar getting sole custody with another woman, whom he married and who adopted the child, according to Colorado and Illinois court records. During the ordeal, Del Mar started a group called Fathers Helping Fathers, which advocated for unwed or divorced fathers seeking legal advice on custody. He said the group dissolved four or five years ago because he no longer had time to oversee it.

Del Mar and his wife later divorced. In February 2013, a Naperville man she was dating filed for a no-contact order against Del Mar in DuPage County following a series of anger-filled text messages Del Mar sent her about him. Some of the texts read:

“I’m fully prepared for the repercussions and consequences of kicking his ass … I will wear them like a badge of honor.”

“Ur bring him around, that’s your decision … My suggestions is to keep him as far away from me as possible … I would be more worried if it gets physical, that would really look bad.”

“I Fn hate him and I’m not going to hide it … I want him to get pancreatic cancer.”

At an April hearing that year, the man testified he was “definitely fearful” of Del Mar because of his fighting background, according to a transcript. But after Del Mar’s lawyer cross-examined him, then-DuPage County Judge Elizabeth Sexton ruled the matter was “no longer an emergency,” and the man later withdrew the case.

Del Mar confirmed to the Tribune that he sent the texts and said he handled the situation in a way “that I’m not totally proud of.”

“I was very upset,” he said. “I felt that he was (the) center point to my family being broken up.”

But Del Mar said the man “purposely withdrew their argument because they knew it was garbage.” He disputes that he threatened the man, noting the texts were sent to his ex-wife, not to the man directly.

“She chose to share them publicly. I never once said, ‘Hey, I’m going to hurt you or harm you, or threaten a person,’ right? There’s a difference in that, I think, and I think that subtlety is important,” Del Mar said.

His sometimes fiery demeanor was on display as recently as last week, when he told WLS-AM he wanted to “choke” Pritzker “through the television.” He was criticizing the governor for touting minimum wage increases while some taxes have also gone up under his leadership. Del Mar made a similar comment about the Democratic-controlled legislature.

“We will reach across the aisle and shake their hand, but when they don’t want to cooperate, we will reach across the aisle and grab them by the throat,” Del Mar said on the show.

Del Mar told the Tribune he “got a little animated and had some hyperbole and political rhetoric” on WLS but that did not mean he intended to harm anyone.

“I have not hit a human being since I left the cage,” Del Mar said, referring to his time as a competitive mixed-martial arts fighter more than 20 years ago.

He also insists he has the right temperament to be lieutenant governor.

“I think that voters should know that if I’m elected, I’m going to fight for their rights. I’m going to fight to lower their property taxes, to make sure that they’re safe, to make sure that their kids have access to quality education,” he said. “It doesn’t mean having to physically go into Springfield punching people.”