SPRINGFIELD — Republicans spent their day at the Illinois State Fair on Thursday largely sidestepping the impact a Donald Trump presidential nomination might have on efforts to rejuvenate the moribund political organization in a state controlled by Democrats.
Party leaders also acknowledged that abortion rights, which motivated Democratic voters — particularly women in the once GOP-rich suburbs — and led to election successes last year, will remain a critical 2024 election-year issue that they will have to try to counter.
“Why change a winning strategy?” Demetra DeMonte, the state’s Republican national committeewoman, said of Democrats during a breakfast meeting of GOP leaders. “We are the ones that must change. We Republicans must put Democrats on the defensive on abortion.”
Noting an “unending drumbeat” of Democratic ads on abortion rights last year, DeMonte and other Republicans said the GOP must work to label Democrats as extreme on the issue.
Referencing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that overturned Roe v. Wade and turned decisions on legalizing the procedure over to the states, DeMonte contended Democrats were spreading misinformation about Republicans seeking to reverse Illinois law that enshrines a woman’s right to an abortion.
“Abortion is not a federal issue. It is a state issue,” she said, ignoring efforts by some Congressional Republicans to push for a federal ban.
Trump, the embrace of far-right candidates amid internal fights between establishment and grassroots conservatives, and opposition to abortion have proved to be the GOP’s biggest hurdles in its efforts to stage a revival in a state where Democrats hold all statewide offices and majorities in the General Assembly and state Supreme Court, and have broken the GOP’s once vaunted control of the collar counties.
“I’m always so curious as why is it all about Donald Trump?” state Rep. Tony McCombie of Savanna, the leader of the House Republicans’ 40-member minority in the 118-seat House, asked reporters. “Why don’t we concentrate about what’s going on in Illinois?”
Rather than discuss Trump’s impact on efforts to erode the Democratic supermajorities, McCombie and state Senate GOP leader John Curran of Downers Grove each indicated they plan to keep the focus on Illinois issues in local contests rather than see them become nationalized, as they have been in recent years.
“I have concerns anytime we’re not talking Illinois issues with those we represent,” Curran said. “Illinois has been out of balance, and that is really where we want to drive the conversation. So whether it’s Donald Trump or any other national issue, it is really the state issues that we want to drive the message.”
The state’s Republican chairman, Don Tracy of Springfield, told GOP leaders, “If we are to win again in Illinois, we have got to win back the suburbs.”
Curran contended that Republicans “have not lost the suburbs,” but instead that those areas “have become much more balanced” politically.
But with the fair’s festivities at times resembling an open casting call for GOP candidates, Curran said he and McCombie “are working very closely together in identifying community leaders to run as Republican candidates, because it is about representing the district you are in and that is what the Republican philosophy of governance allows, and that is ultimately how we are going to grow again in the suburbs.”
Still, the state GOP’s party platform, contained in the “What We Believe” section of its website, calls for amending the federal and Illinois constitutions to affirm “the right to life of unborn children” as well as a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and to “celebrate the loving commitment a man and a woman make to each other in marriage.”
Infighting within the factionalized GOP remains a major concern, with leaders urging unity and an end to name-calling as the party searches for paths to victory.
“I think it’s extremely important that Republicans don’t spend time beating up on other Republicans,” McCombie said. “And quite honestly, we don’t have to because the Democrats give us enough material that we can just take their material and beat up on them just quite enough.”
Richard Porter, the state’s Republican national committeeman, encouraged party members to engage with voters who label them a RINO — short for Republican In Name Only.
“We’re the party of ‘sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt me,’” he said. “Everybody’s got to have thick skin to be in this game. If someone calls you a RINO, call them up. Grab a cup of coffee.”
“Some people really (are) kind of hateful people. That is what it is,” he also said. “But most people, they just don’t know you.”
Another example of party infighting was the appearance of Darren Bailey of Xenia, the unsuccessful GOP challenger to Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker last November who is now running against five-term Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro in the massive and ruby-red 12th District downstate.
Bost has received the backing of major Republicans in the district and was hosting a fundraiser featuring U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in downstate O’Fallon, forcing him to miss the fair’s GOP day.
Despite his own background as a state representative and senator, Bailey has sought to paint Bost as part of the GOP “establishment” that “continues to allow incumbents to be elected and this a career.”
Trump endorsed Bailey for governor and Bost for reelection to the House in the 2022 election, and Bailey has actively courted the former president’s support for 2024.
“I’d love to have his endorsement,” Bailey told reporters at a fairgrounds rally that he said represents “the establishment.”
“I’ve had many conversations with President Trump. President Trump’s a very smart man. He knows what he’s going to do. But I support him 100%,” Bailey said.
Bost has also said he supports Trump’s presidential bid in 2024.
The Trump factor weighs heavily on the GOP as the former president remains the front-runner among Republicans for the White House nomination while at the same time becoming the first former president to face indictment, with criminal charges filed by both federal and state prosecutors.
U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood of Peoria, one of three Republicans in the state’s 17-member congressional delegation along with Bost and U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Oakland, told GOP leaders, “Politics is about the future, not about the past.”
LaHood later made clear he was not referencing Trump, who has continued to make false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
“For me, it’s about winning. We need to win, right?” LaHood said. “I think we as Republicans need to be optimistic. We need to think about the future. So that’s what I’ve said as we look at 2024 for all of our candidates, whether it’s the presidential candidates down to congressional, I think that’s the winning message.”
LaHood hailed a “deep, diverse” field of candidates but said he has not yet made a choice for the GOP presidential nomination.
Porter, who is backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination, said it was time to move beyond Trump.
“I think that the most ardent Trumpers recognize that they might love him in their heart, but they know in their head he is not going to win the independents in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, New Hampshire, Arizona and Nevada. And that’s what you need to do in order to become president,” Porter said.
“And if you don’t become president of the United States,” he said, “Trump goes to jail.”
