Will County sheriff announces bid for reelection in 2022

Will County Sheriff Mike Kelley announced he will run for a third term in office in the 2022 election.

“I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in the past, and I am asking for your continued support in November of 2022,” Kelley wrote on Facebook.

Kelley was first elected in 2014 to lead the department, which has more than 200 officers and is responsible for unincorporated parts of Will County, as well as the county jail in downtown Joliet. He was reelected for a second term in 2018.

Under Kelley’s leadership, the department has seen the construction of a new public safety complex, the purchase of body cameras for all of its officers and, most recently, the launch of a new mobile app for residents to receive information relevant to the department’s work.

The sheriff’s announcement ahead of the 2022 election comes at a time when policing in the U.S. is under particular scrutiny with a focus on high-profile killings of Black Americans at the hands of police.

Activists across the country, including in Will County, have demonstrated and called for reforms, even at the local level. The state Legislature also passed a sweeping police reform law that establishes use-of-force standards, ends cash bail and requires all officers to use body cameras.

Several police officials and at least one village in Will County have expressed deep concern with the new law, including Kelley’s 2018 challenger, Republican Jim Reilly.

Last month, Reilly announced he would again challenge Kelley in 2022. He lost to Kelley by a margin of 16 percentage points in 2018.

In his announcement, Reilly didn’t mention Kelley, but he attacked state Democrats for their “liberal agenda,” which he argued would “undermine law enforcement, risk the safety of our first responders and further the progressive Chicago agenda into our Will County communities.”

While 2022 is expected to be a good year for Republicans, Democrats in Will County have had a string of recent success, winning every countywide elected office.