SPRINGFIELD — Illinois Republicans used their day at the State Fair Thursday to blame Democrats for crime, inflation and tax increases while urging a focus on policies, not personality as they head into a November election with a ticket led by presidential nominee Donald Trump, who twice has been overwhelmingly rejected by the state’s voters.
New Illinois GOP Chair Kathy Salvi opened a morning meeting by declaring the party will be unified and “will win in November 2024,” while subtly acknowledging the uphill battle for a party that has lost traction with the state’s electorate.
“We’re on a mission to elect Trump-Vance and everyone down ticket,” Salvi told an audience of about 80 people at a joint meeting of the state party’s State Central Committee and County Chair’s Association, referring to the former president and his running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance. “So we’ve got to figure out a way to bring people together. There’s no better way to do that than bridging these gaps.”
With Republicans becoming the party of Trump, winning back suburban areas that once consistently carried GOP candidates to victory will be a daunting task. The former president suffered 17-percentage point losses in Illinois during the 2016 and 2020 elections, pushing the state GOP into further irrelevance.
Democrats, who hold their national convention in Chicago next week, control all three branches of state government, 14 of the state’s 17 congressional seats and both U.S. Senate seats.
Republicans at the fair downplayed Trump’s influence on down-ballot races in recent years, blaming the Democrats for drawing gerrymandered maps in their favor that were then signed by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker.
Republicans also blamed Pritzker for pushing through hundreds of millions of dollars in tax increases in the current state budget and continuing to provide state funding for the influx of migrants coming into the Chicago area from the southern U.S. border.
“So, taxes, cost of living, crime, corruption. The most corrupt state in the nation,” Illinois Senate Republican leader John Curran of Downers Grove said in an interview before the GOP’s afternoon programming at the state fairgrounds. “This is what Gov. Pritzker’s Democratic allies have brought to Illinois.”
After a slight rain delay, a couple of hundred people gathered for a GOP rally on the director’s lawn of the fairgrounds, where Salvi basted Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as a “trainwreck.”
“Think about that convention. They’re about to nominate somebody who didn’t get one single vote,” Salvi said, referring to how Harris was handed the nomination after President Joe Biden quit the race. “What about democracy? You know, in a lot of countries, that would be called a coup! But do you hear anything about that? Nothing. Nada. Crickets. Well, that’s something that we could communicate.”
Illinois House Republican leader Tony McCombie of Savanna told the crowd the Democratic Party “wants to destroy small business, hurt our most vulnerable and make families feel that they need to be reliant on government for everything.”
“Democrats have been working for years to try to convince the people of Illinois and our nation that the Republican Party does not believe in democracy. But yet, Democrats want noncitizens and felons, I’m sorry, I mean justice-impacted individuals to vote,” McCombie said.
Her quip alluded to a new state law championed by progressive Democrats that changes terminology for people convicted of felonies if they’re part of a special diversion program.
McCombie did not mention that Trump was convicted of felonies earlier this year in his hush money trial in New York, though his sentencing was postponed after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled former presidents have broad immunity for “official” acts. The former president has two other cases pending, both involving charges that he plotted to steal the 2020 election win from Biden.
McCombie said the November election wasn’t just about a presidential race but also about the governor’s race in 2026. While a few Republicans have expressed interest in possibly running, Pritzker has not said whether he will seek a third term.
“Our turnout in this race will be instrumental in determining the future leadership for Illinois,” McCombie said. “This election cycle is about us. It’s about us showing up.”
Illinois Republicans’ once winning statewide platform of moderation on social issues and fiscal conservatism has gradually been scuttled by a growing embrace of social conservatism, including opposition to gay rights and abortion.
After the Thursday morning meeting, Myles Nelson, a GOP committeeman from the Metro East area of Illinois outside St. Louis, said for the state party to make inroads in blue Illinois, it has to convince voters to focus on policies instead of personalities.
“We have to focus on the issues that bring those moderates and independents in the suburbs back to us, crime, corruption, costs of living. Go to the grocery store. Go to the gas pump. Everyone is feeling it,” said Nelson, a Trump delegate at last month’s GOP convention in Milwaukee. “And what the people of northern Illinois have to know is that Donald Trump’s policies were right.”
Niki Conforti, a Republican who is challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Sean Casten for his congressional seat in the Chicago suburbs, agreed that focusing on the issues is what should help the GOP regain the support it has lost over the years in the suburbs.
“The crime, the cost of living, inflation, those are the issues that people are worried about today and it’s going to drive our people to the polls,” Conforti said. “We didn’t lose it overnight and we’re not going to win it back overnight. But we can make strides with each election cycle and take it back.”
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