Editor’s Note: In Tuesday’s issue of The Daily Eastern News, the article “Cox, Rankin, Rauner win primary election, the winner of the state representative primary was incorrectly identified. It should have said Reggie Phillips won.

Reggie Phillips believes in order to change, a new approach needs to be taken – and with his win of the Republican primary Tuesday he is one step closer to his goal.

Phillips, a local business owner, won the Republican primary for state representative Tuesday, gathering 42 percent of the vote from all the precincts.

For a man who does not want to wait until January to begin his term, he might not have to, unless a Democratic candidate decides to run against him by June.

“I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and get to work,” he said.

Phillips said he it was around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday as he and his wife went through different results that he found out he had won.

“We were pretty sure,” he said.

But the experience left him “humbled,” mostly because Phillips would not describe himself as a politician, but instead somebody who wants to help and make a change.

Phillips, who said the only reason he went into the race was to help perpetrate change for Illinois, almost didn’t end up on the ballot.

“I jumped in at the last minute,” he said. Driven by thinking the public needed a third option to vote on, Phillips said he wanted to let the people know he wants to try a different approach.

Standing on what he calls a “simple platform,” Phillips said he believes that by going down the same path, the same results will come forth – most of which include debt for the state.

Focus on businesses and “getting money back to the state” is just one of the issues Phillips worked for during his campaign.

Phillips said during his campaign he would let corporate sales tax expire in order to bring more jobs to Illinois.

Also during his campaign, Phillips said he believed the government should uphold their end of the bargain when it came to the issue of pensions.

But, at the end of the campaign, and after all the votes were tallied, Phillips’ whole motivation for running still remains intact: he wants to bring change to Illinois and help make a difference.

“That’s the only reason I got into this,” he said. “I thought I could really make a difference.”

Bob Galuski can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].