Edgar would go on to win a full term in 1982 and was reelected by a significant margin in 1986 in a race complicated by a LaRouchian candidate on the Democratic ticket.

Edgar ran successfully for Governor of Illinois in the competitive 1990 election, narrowly defeating incumbent Attorney General Neil Hartigan.

During the Republican Revolution of '94, he won reelection in a landslide over the Democratic Illinois Comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch—winning 101 of the state's 102 counties.

[5] Cecil, a small-businessman from Charleston, Illinois, died in an automobile accident in 1953, leaving Jim and his two older brothers to be raised by their mother.

[6] To support her children, Betty Edgar worked as a clerk at Eastern Illinois University, where Jim would later attend.

[6][8] Following his graduation from college, Edgar served as a legislative intern and then personal assistant to Illinois Senate Republican leader W. Russell Arrington despite his mother's wish for him to attend law school.

[9] After the campaign, Edgar worked as an insurance and cosmetics salesperson before briefly serving the National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver.

[11] While in the House, Edgar served on the Appropriations II, Human Resources, and Revenue committees as well as the Illinois Commission on Intergovernmental Cooperation.

[12] Due to his moderate policy positions, Edgar was often considered a swing vote, especially on the Human Resources committee.

[15][16] During his first term as Secretary of State, Edgar diverged from past practices in the office by keeping many of the Democratic employees hired by his predecessor.

[17][18] Edgar also voiced support for a national 21-year-old legal drinking age and was appointed to U.S. President Ronald Reagan's Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving in 1982.

[18] During his second term, Edgar spearheaded a successful legislative battle to pass a bill instituting mandatory automobile insurance for Illinois motorists.

[19] Despite instantly becoming the Republican Party's frontrunner and Thompson's heir-apparent, Edgar was challenged in the 1990 primary by perennial candidate Robert Marshall and conservative political activist Steve Baer.

[23] Hartigan, like Baer, opposed making permanent the state's 20% education-focused income tax and attacked Edgar as a tax-and-spend politician.

[6][23][29] At one rally towards the end of the campaign, Edgar held up a waffle and joked that it would become the state seal if Hartigan were elected.

[29] Edgar's campaign was hindered by a poor national environment for Republicans and a desire amongst the Illinois public for a change in leadership following the previous four terms of Jim Thompson.

Senator Paul Simon in a Democratic landslide and made Edgar one of only two Republicans to win statewide office in Illinois that year.

[32][33][34] Hartigan worked to regain support in the African American community throughout the race, even bringing in former professional boxer Muhammad Ali to campaign alongside him.

Bush's vetoing of the Civil Rights Act of 1990 and courted the support of prominent Black leaders, especially those involved with the recently-formed Harold Washington Party, gaining endorsements from several including Lu Palmer.

[32][38] On January 14th, 1991, Edgar took the oath of office as Governor of Illinois and gave a speech focused on fiscal responsibility.

[48] Policy changes enacted by Edgar included reorienting the department's priorities around focusing on the best interests of the children they were dealing with as opposed to keeping families together, toughening standards for private agencies and organizations overseeing child-care, and passing a bipartisan package of welfare reforms in 1994 focused on increasing scrutiny in abuse-related death investigations, establishing methods of stopping child abuse before it occurs, and requiring the department to draft standardized training procedures and guidelines for caseworkers.

[40] This would be the first of many actions Edgar would take to curb the devastation of the Great Flood of 1993, later be regarded as one of the worst natural disasters in Illinois history.

[52] This approach was stopped in 1982 due to strains on the Illinois budget and state contributions remained flat between 1982 and 1995, resulting in an underfunding of pensions by approximately $20 billion.

[55][54] In 1994, Edgar easily defeated the Democratic nominee, incumbent state comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch, to win re-election in a landslide.

Edgar was never accused of wrongdoing, but he testified twice, once in court and once by videotape, becoming the first sitting Illinois governor to take the witness stand in a criminal case in 75 years.

[63] In September 2011, Edgar helped dedicate the Mark R. Shenkman Reagan Research Center housed in the Eureka College library.