Why the Illinois GOP Is Moving Right
The night before he won the Republican nomination for governor, state senator Darren Bailey held a 'Fire Pritzker' rally at the Des Plaines Theatre...
The night before he won the Republican nomination for governor, state senator Darren Bailey held a 'Fire Pritzker' rally at the Des Plaines Theatre. It was the last stop on his campaign's 102-county tour of Illinois. A hundred and fifty or so blue-jeaned baby boomers in 'Bailey-Trussell' and 'Mama Bears for Bailey' T-shirts clustered in front of the art deco stage. Bailey's followers weren't just angry at his general election opponent, Governor J.B. Pritzker, whom they called a 'tyrant' for shutting down businesses during the COVID outbreak; they were mad at the Illinois Republican Party for decades of compromising with Democrats on guns, taxes, and abortion.