GOP candidates for governor take aim at Richard Irvin during first faceoff of the primary
Republican candidates for Illinois governor before the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board on May 17, 2022.
Sullivan also attempted to tie Irvin to former one-term Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who lost to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker in 2018, and warned GOP voters that supporting Irvin this primary would result in the same outcome.Noting many of Rauner’s aides are running Irvin’s campaign, Sullivan said, “It’s the same Rauner playbook that they used in 2018. The same insiders that ruined his chances against Pritzker. Same thing is going to happen here with this one.
Republican candidates for governor Richard Irvin, left, and Darren Bailey debate at the Chicago Tribune Editorial Board session on May 17, 2022. Though Illinois overwhelmingly supported Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, the former Republican president remains a powerful force in GOP politics nationally and locally, with Bailey actively courting his endorsement and saying there was “no” daylight between him and Trump.Asked afterward if Bailey agreed with Trump’s false assertion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, he said, “There was fraud. We know there was fraud.
Except for Irvin, the candidates — including paving magnate Gary Rabine, former state Sen. Paul Schimpf of Waterloo and attorney Max Solomon of Hazel Crest — explicitly said they voted for Trump in 2020. Irvin, repeating a line he has used in recent days afteron texts in which he called Trump an “idiot” and a “bigoted racist,” said only: “I’m a Republican and in generals , I vote Republican.”
But he also said that for Republicans to be successful, it would require a candidate who can win crossover votes in a state with more Democrats than Republicans, who can unify an often disparate state GOP and who can “be able to survive a $100 million character assassination that is going to be coming from J.B. Pritzker.” He maintained he was that candidate.
Following the editorial board meeting, Bailey said the decision to hold off on television advertising in the pricey Chicago market until six weeks out from the election was to conserve resources while letting “the opposition fill the airwaves with their lies.”
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