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Mr. Kinzinger is unapologetic about his priorities.

“Central and northern Illinois deserve an explanation and deserve my full attention, and they’ll get it,” he said. “But to the extent I can, I will also focus on the national message because I can turn every heart in central and northern Illinois and it wouldn’t make a dent on the whole party. And that’s what I think the huge battle is.”

Mr. Kinzinger has drawn praise from Democrats, but he is not anyone’s idea of a progressive. His campaign website trumpets his longstanding opposition to the Affordable Care Act, and he is an opponent of abortion rights and increased taxes. He first won his seat in Congress with Sarah Palin’s endorsement.

Raised in a large central Illinois family — his father, who has 32 first cousins, ran food banks and shelters for the homeless in Peoria and Bloomington — Mr. Kinzinger was interested in politics from an early age. Before he’d turned 10 he predicted he would one day be governor or president, Ms. Otto said, and he won election to the McLean County Board when he was a 20-year-old sophomore at Illinois State University.

He joined the Air Force after the Sept. 11 attacks and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon his discharge he joined the Air National Guard, where he remains a lieutenant colonel. In the 2010 Republican wave Mr. Kinzinger, then 32, beat a Democratic incumbent by nearly 15 percentage points and, two years later, with support from Eric Cantor, then the House majority leader, ousted another incumbent, 10-term Republican Don Manzullo, in a primary following redistricting.

But Mr. Kinzinger soon became dispirited by a Republican Party he believed was centered around opposition to whatever President Barack Obama proposed without offering new ideas of its own.

“His frustration level has been rising ever since he got to Congress and I think the Trump era has been difficult for him to make sense of and participate in,” said former Representative Kevin Yoder of Kansas, who was one of Mr. Kinzinger’s closest friends in Congress before losing a 2018 re-election bid. When loyalty to Mr. Trump became a litmus test for Republican conservatism, Mr. Yoder said, “that became a bridge too far for him.”