Illinois Republicans set state fair sights on Gov. JB Pritzker and ‘flat-out crazy’ Democrats

SPRINGFIELD — It was a different political boogeyman being put on blast Thursday at the Illinois State Fair, where Republicans sharpened their attacks against incumbent Gov. JB Pritzker in his bid for a third term with a rematch this November’s against GOP nominee Darren Bailey.

And as much as Pritzker and his fellow Democrats lampooned Donald Trump a day earlier during their own fairground rally, Bailey and his Republican colleagues mostly steered clear of mentioning the president — who remains unpopular in most of the state — while zeroing in on cost-of-living, public safety and education issues.

“That is what Illinoisans are concerned about,” Bailey said. “They’re not concerned about the lies that JB’s smearing. They’ve woken up over the last four years. They realize the damage that JB Pritzker is doing to the state. They realize it because they’re living it and they’re feeling it.”

Heeding his running mate’s call to put “petty differences aside” in a party grasping for relevance, Cook County GOP chair and lieutenant governor candidate Aaron Del Mar said he buried his own hatchet with the southern Illinois farmer Bailey. Now the Chicago-area/downstate ticket is posing a simple question to voters who haven’t sent a Republican into statewide office since 2014.

“Are you better off now than you were seven-and-a-half years ago? You absolutely are not, and we are sick and tired of it,” Del Mar said in a fiery fairground speech. “We are tired of being pushed around. We are tired of being attacked. We are tired of being taxed, and we’re not taking it anymore.”

Bailey lost to Pritzker in a landslide four years ago, but he assured “our friends in the Chicagoland area, it is completely different — completely different — than it was four years ago.

“They’re getting it because they can’t afford to live there, they don’t feel safe and they know their schools are failing,” Bailey said.

As Pritzker’s campaign launched a TV ad campaign blasting Bailey’s “extreme MAGA views,” the longtime Trump supporter downplayed his ties to the president who has dragged down the GOP ticket in suburban areas of DuPage County that previously served as the base of the Illinois Republican Party.

“The president of the United States has nothing to do with the problems that Illinois is having right now,” Bailey told reporters. “We need new leadership, and the people need to realize that JB Pritzker has and is and will continue to fail them if we let him have another term.”

Pritzker’s campaign trolled Republicans’ day at the fair with several staffers donning dinosaur costumes holding signs declaring “Dinosaurs against Darren Bailey,” poking at the curriculum at a Bailey-founded school teaching that humans coexisted with the prehistoric reptiles.

Bailey wouldn’t say whether he agrees with the United States Geological Survey and the body of science that holds that some 65 million years elapsed between the extinction of dinosaurs and the rise of man.

“Go ask Fred Flintstone,” Bailey said, referring to Pritzker. “Let him explain it, because he needs to be focused on spending money on getting the message out on how he is going to make Illinois more affordable, safer, and fix our schools. And he’s refusing to do that.”

Nor was the specter of Trump raised by U.S. Senate candidate Don Tracy, who said his own party is “far from perfect — but the other side is flat-out crazy.” Instead, Tracy raised the specter of communism.

“My Chicago opponent in this election, Lt. Gov. [Juliana] Stratton, and her Democratic Socialist allies like [New York City] Mayor [Zohran] Mamdani, [Chicago] Mayor [Brandon] Johnson, Bernie Sanders, Stacy Davis Gates and the two Democratic Socialists who just won the Democratic primaries for U.S. Senate in Michigan and Florida,” Tracy said.

“We believe in legal immigration, they’re for open border. We believe in law and order. They’re for social justice, whatever that means — which I think means defunding police and letting career criminals roam free.”

Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, was one of the few speakers of the day to pounce on questions around Democratic House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s handling of sexual harassment allegations against disgraced ex-state Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield.

“Speaker Welch knew about the allegations. He did nothing, and then spent $1.4 million to put that creep back in office. He got him reelected. And what did that do? It opened up the door for Harry Benton to harass more women,” McCombie said.

Illinois GOP Chair Bob Grogan suggested Welch could be “the next Mike Madigan,” but said his party has now more material to work with to gain ground in Illinois beyond bashing the federally convicted former speaker.

“We were a one-trick pony. We just ripped on Mike Madigan. Deserved, but that was our campaign strategy,” Grogan said. “The Democrats, they are a one-trick pony. All they do is rip on Donald Trump. He’s not on the ballot, either.”