MILWAUKEE — Promising to “make Illinois red again,” incoming state Republican Party Chair Kathy Salvi on Wednesday promised to unite the fractured political party organization and win down-ballot elections in 2024 with Donald Trump at the top of the ticket.
The Mundelein attorney addressed Trump delegates to the Republican National Convention and took questions from the press for the first time since her election to the leadership post last Friday.
“When you cross the border into Illinois, don’t you sorta feel a blue funk sometimes?” she said during the delegation’s daily breakfast meeting at a Milwaukee-area motel. “Well I’ll tell ya, that blue funk is over.”
Salvi is trying to coalesce a state party — split by geographic and ideological differences — that hasn’t had a statewide electoral victory since Bruce Rauner’s election as governor in 2014.
It was party infighting that led to Don Tracy’s decision to step down as state party chair after 3⅟₂ years. Salvi officially takes over Friday.
During her first formal address to Illinois GOP delegates and other party operatives Wednesday, Salvi said it was the stories told on the convention stage this week — including from a mother whose son died of fentanyl poisoning — that would “drive a very angry electorate” to elect Trump president.
But would that message sell in the suburbs, where Republicans have lost ground to Democrats in congressional, state and county races?
“No matter where you live, ask anybody, are they suffering in their budgets? Are they having to get a second job in order to make ends meet?” she told reporters at a post-breakfast news conference.
“Our policies — the policies of the Republican Party in Illinois and nationally — offer the relief that Illinois families and businesses need,” she added.
Salvi promised to harness a “mosaic of voices and viewpoints,” build bridges and resolve differences amid the party infighting.
She was introduced at the delegate breakfast by Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, of Savanna, who acknowledged Illinois Republicans are “tough on one another.”
The legislative leader vowed to flip five seats from blue to red this fall. That includes suburban districts where the Democratic incumbent isn’t running again.
McCombie acknowledged fundraising challenges amid the departures of Rauner, hedge fund manager Ken Griffin and other power players out of state, but that “after we win some elections, some of those donors will come back,” McCombie said.
When asked if Trump could be a drag on the ticket for the suburban races in particular, she said no.
“The top of the ticket for Democrats and Republicans is challenging this year all around the nation,” McCombie said.