SPRINGFIELD — The March 17 election includes primary races for Illinois’ secretary of state, attorney general and treasurer — and while all those positions are held by incumbent Democrats who are running for new terms with no primary challengers, Republicans are duking it out in one of the con tests. For the GOP nomination for secretary of state, Joliet resident Diane M. Harris is going up against Chicagoan Walter Adamczyk for the right to compete against first-term incumbent, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, in November’s general election. The office has arguably the most interaction with the public of any at the state level, providing a host of services that include driver’s licenses and testing and other state IDs, registrations for vehicles, lobbyists, businesses and other services. A precinct committeewoman for more than a decade, Harris is a retired Commonwealth Edison employee, having spent more than 30 years working for the utility giant. She’s also run unsuccessfully for several other offices over the years, including for state senator and Joliet mayor. As she takes her chances in the secretary of state’s race, Harris wants to push for reduced fees for state stickers, titles and other vehicle service fees, especially for seniors and veterans. According to the secretary of state website, a vehicle title can cost as much as $165 and standard renewal stickers can cost $151 each. Harris also has heard complaints about how the office’s appointment process can be inconvenient, and with many of its services available online, she notes, “some individuals will not and still won’t go online to do their services.” Former Illinois Republican Party Chair Don Tracy, right, expresses his pleasure that Diane Harris is a secretary of state candidate during a joint meeting between the Illinois Republican Party State Central Committee and the Republican County Chair's Association on Aug. 14, 2025, in Springfield. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune) “There’s a select group of individuals who will always go online. I mean, I’m 70 years old. I enjoy the online, and I only enjoy it because I have someone that can help me,” she said. “At my age, we have a lot (of people who will) not go online because it’s too frustrating.” Like other Republicans running in primaries for statewide office, Harris, a conservative Republican, will face significant challenges in blue Illinois. In the 2022 general election, Giannoulias won his race with 54% of the vote over his challenger, Republican Dan Brady of Bloomington. Funding-wise, Giannoulias, who has been floated as a potential 2027 Chicago mayoral contender, had more than $6 million in his campaign coffers at the end of 2025, according to the Illinois State Board of Elections. Harris had just $9.75 in her campaign account through last year. She said, “It’s totally difficult to get funding,” though it won’t prevent her from continuing to run her race. Adamczyk said on his campaign website that he wants to improve customer service for veterans, pushing for all honorably discharged vets to receive free driver’s licenses or state IDs upon presenting proof of service. On his website, Adamczyk, who is listed on the Cook County Republican Party website as the GOP committeeman for Chicago’s 29th Ward, also emphasized walk-in services and creating dedicated express lanes for veterans at secretary of state facilities. “Veterans should not be forced to navigate appointment backlogs or long waits,” his campaign website says. “A veteran should be able to walk in, be served promptly, and be treated with appreciation — no appointment required.” In an interview, Adamczyk explained that while he isn’t a military veteran, he has friends who are. “I go (to) all these VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) halls, you know, they’re helping homeless vets, give them jackets, give them this, give them that. How come we don’t help them get their IDs?” he said. “Then we can bring them to the VA (U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs) and then they can get their benefits.” Walter Adamczyk, right, hands out boxes of masks to Little Village residents at the corner of 32nd Street and Harding Avenue just blocks from the defunct Crawford power plant on April 16, 2020. The smokestack chimney of the former coal plant had recently imploded. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune) Board of Elections records show that through 2025, his campaign raised no money. In the attorney general’s race, former Chicago Ald. Bob Fioretti is the only Republican seeking the nomination, almost assuredly earning him the chance to take on Democratic incumbent Kwame Raoul in November. Raoul, who is seeking a third term, also has no primary opponent. The office has myriad functions, ranging from handling consumer protection issues and prosecuting some crimes to defending state laws in court. Since Republican President Donald Trump took office last year, the office under Raoul has often partnered with other states’ attorneys general in filing more than 50 lawsuits, including over federal immigration enforcement agent tactics used during deportation missions and the Trump administration’s attempt to deploy Illinois National Guard troops against Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker’s wishes. Fioretti is a civil rights attorney who has run for and lost several public offices, including as a Democrat, since leaving the Chicago City Council more than a decade ago. In 2024, he ran as a Republican in the Cook County state’s attorney race, losing to Democrat Eileen O’Neill Burke. “Several years ago, I switched to the Republican Party because to me, like (many) others across America, the Democratic Party left me,” Fioretti said in an interview. “They left family values, fiscal responsibility and freedom behind.” Former Chicago Ald. Bob Fioretti sings the national anthem during Republican Day at the Illinois State Fair on Aug. 14, 2025, at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune) In a statement later, when asked if he’d continue with Raoul’s lawsuits, Fioretti’s campaign said it hadn’t reviewed every Trump-related lawsuit but said that if any “of Raoul’s lawsuits that seek to impede law enforcement officials from doing their sworn duty, interfere in cleaning up the corruption in Illinois elections, target the rights of law-abiding gun owners, or substitute Kwame Raoul’s judgment for parental decision making regarding the education, health care and general welfare of their children, we will withdraw from those lawsuits as quickly as possible.” In the interview, Fioretti said he’d use the attorney general’s office to “stand up for crime victims instead of violent criminals” and look at the statewide use of grand juries to ramp up on how the office prosecutes public corruption and violent crime. Like many other Republicans, he also wants to push to overturn or tweak the state’s sweeping criminal justice overhaul from 2021, the Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today law, also known as the SAFE-T Act, which includes a controversial provision that eliminated cash bail. Specifically, Fioretti wants to revisit the law’s electronic-monitoring and judicial-discretion guidelines, which he believes are too lenient. Attorney General Kwame Raoul speaks during a press conference at the State of Illinois building on Jan. 20, 2026. (Eileen T. Meslar/Chicago Tribune) Despite warnings a few years ago from Republicans that the elimination of cash bail would lead to upticks in crime in Chicago, the opposite has happened. Last year, Chicago recorded 416 killings — the lowest homicide total the city has seen in more than a decade — while shootings, defined as incidents in which at least one person was killed or wounded, fell by about one-third compared with 2019, Chicago Police Department data show. Also last year, the city saw drops in other crime categories. Fioretti noted that crime is down across the country, not just in Chicago, and the SAFE-T Act can’t take credit for that. But, he said, “I know” a lot of people aren’t reporting crimes. “I’ve told people to go to the police station when they were attacked on the street, or something, and they just say, ‘Well, nothing’s going to happen,'” Fioretti said. In 2022, Raoul won the general election with 54% of the vote against Republican attorney Thomas DeVore of Sorento, Raoul’s main challenger in the race. Board of Elections figures show Raoul had more than $1.5 million in his campaign account at the end of last year. Fioretti, meanwhile, had only a little over $23,700 through 2025. For state treasurer, Democratic incumbent Michael Frerichs is currently running unopposed in his bid for a fourth term, including by any Republicans, marking the first time in at least 90 years that a major political party did not have any candidate file to run in a primary election for statewide office, Frerichs’ campaign has said. ...read more read less