Republican candidate James R. Thompson won a fourth term in office, defeating the Illinois Solidarity Party nominee, former United States Senator Adlai Stevenson III, by around 400,000 votes.

The "official" Democratic ticket, ultimately running Fairchild on the ballot alone as a lieutenant gubernatorial nominee without a gubernatorial nominee atop the ticket, only just managed to surpass the 5% mark needed for the party to retain their major party status in Illinois after the election.

[2] Adlai Stevenson III won a comfortable victory in the primary over perennial candidate Larry Burgess.

However, Stevenson's efforts were largely derailed in the primary when the candidates he supported for Lieutenant Governor (George Sangmeister) and Secretary of State (Aurelia Pucinski) were both upset by Mark J. Fairchild and Janice Hart.

When this became public knowledge after the primaries, Stevenson was forced to abandon his Democratic Party nomination and run as a third-party candidate.

[8] Thompson's reelection campaign received the backing of incumbent Republican president Ronald Reagan.