For Immediate Release:
Thursday, November 13, 2025

Contact:
Erika Caldwell, Communications Director
press@ildcca.org

SORRY IL GOP: IF YOU WANT TO BE THE LAW, YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO FOLLOW THE LAW

Springfield, IL – One-time candidate Brandon Gibbs tried to pull a fast one on Jackson County Democrats this petition season but MAGA mischief is no match for good old-fashioned Democratic organizing.

Gibbs, a known Republican, announced his intentions last summer to run for the office of State Representative in the 118th district. But with only weeks to go in the petition circulation period, he cooked up a new scheme: attempt to sneak his way onto the ballot as the Democratic nominee for Sheriff. There was just one little problem – in Illinois, your party affiliation is determined by either the partisan ballot or the last partisan petition you sign. And during the period he was supposedly running as a Democrat, Gibbs signed not one, not two, but three Republican petitions.

Working with the Jackson County Democratic Party, the IDCCA quickly stopped the sloppy switcheroo and assisted in filing objections to Gibbs falsely submitted Democratic petitions.

President Mark Guethle had this to say about the charade, “It’s classic MAGA antics – Illinois Republicans are taking their cues from the top. We’ve got a convict in the White House who believes that the law doesn’t apply to him or any of his cronies – but in Illinois, we do things a little differently. Here, if you want to be the law, you actually have to follow the law.”

“Illinois Republicans can toss whatever crooked schemes that they want at us, they can play their dirty tricks, but it won’t work. Illinois Democrats are too organized and too energized to take our eye off the ball and let Illinoisans suffer under MAGA’s cruel, failing policies,” Guethle added.

Faced with the reality that laws do, in fact, apply to everyone, Gibbs has now withdrawn his candidacy for Sheriff and will not appear on the March ballot in any capacity. This comes on the heels of multiple objections being filed against Republican nominating petitions in Knox County earlier this week, where credible allegations of a pattern of fraud on the part of Republicans have been raised.

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