Chicago’s Morning Answer host Mike Koolidge, filling in for Dan Proft, spoke with Brian Drew, a Republican trial lawyer from Benton, Illinois, running for state comptroller, about the office’s role overseeing government spending and why he believes it represents one of the more winnable statewide races for Republicans this cycle. Koolidge opened by noting that despite Illinois Democrats holding a legislative supermajority, the governorship, and the auditor general’s office, the comptroller’s race remains competitive in part because the position receives relatively little public attention.
Drew argued that the comptroller’s office functions as a critical check on state spending given the absence of other institutional guardrails in Illinois government, explaining that the role oversees how public funds flow through the state and offers a mechanism for exposing wasteful or improperly awarded contracts. He said the office should function as a watchdog for taxpayers rather than a passive administrative body that simply processes payments approved by the legislature and governor.
Drew drew a sharp contrast between his own background and that of his Democratic opponent, a former state legislator who Drew said has accepted maximum campaign contributions from Governor JB Pritzker’s political operation as well as from individuals and entities holding state contracts. Drew argued that having voted for the state budgets and spending measures now under scrutiny, his opponent would effectively be reviewing her own prior legislative decisions if elected comptroller, which he characterized as an inherent conflict of interest. He noted that Illinois’s current comptroller, by contrast, did not accept campaign funds from the governor’s office, a practice Drew said he intends to continue if elected.
Drew said his background as a trial attorney of 25 years, rather than a background in public accounting, positions him well for a role he described as fundamentally about accountability rather than bookkeeping. He said he has traveled roughly seventy thousand miles across Illinois since launching his campaign, visiting communities well beyond the Chicago area, and argued that the state’s economic potential, including its agricultural sector and transportation infrastructure, remains held back primarily by governance and spending decisions rather than any lack of underlying resources.
Drew cited examples of state spending he considers questionable, including hundreds of millions of dollars directed toward a Chinese-linked superconductor manufacturing project and broader allocations to what he described as politically connected nonprofit organizations across Chicago and the state. He also criticized a recent measure redirecting sales tax revenue from downstate Illinois communities to help fund the Chicago Transit Authority, arguing it reflects a broader pattern of fiscal decisions made without adequate transparency or accountability to taxpayers statewide.
Drew emphasized that he has received no financial support from government employee unions, distinguishing his campaign from what he characterized as broader entanglement between Illinois Democratic officials and public sector labor organizations. He closed by framing the comptroller’s office as fundamentally nonpartisan in nature, arguing that wasteful government spending affects taxpayers regardless of political affiliation, and encouraged voters across the political spectrum, including those otherwise inclined to support Democratic candidates statewide, to consider his candidacy as a means of ensuring independent oversight of state government spending regardless of which party controls the governor’s office in the fall.