Illinois GOP as Humpty Dumpty
The Illinois Republican Party is rarely in the limelight, but this past Sunday the host of Meet the Press asked Illinois GOP congressman and Trump apostate Adam Kinzinger if he were going to be censured by his state party leaders at their meeting February 6.
Party organizations across the country are in the same pickle—show your loyalty to Trump or not. Either way it’s a game of subtraction for the Illinois GOP. That is, back Trump and lose maybe a third of the GOP vote who can’t abide him. Or, distance the party from Trump and lose his loyalists within the GOP, who apparently make up roughly two-thirds of the party’s voters. But political parties win by addition, not subtraction.
So, what is likely to happen in upcoming elections? First, some background.
Students of Illinois politics used to evaluate a party’s strength by analyzing votes for University of Illinois trustee candidates, who were elected statewide until the 1980s. The candidates for this unpaid post were unknown to the voters (unless you were Red Grange, who won votes from everyone; before my time, by the way), so the only cue voters had to go on in voting for the office was the candidate’s party ID.
I did a paper that looked at voter trends for UI trustees from 1942-82. The Republican candidates hovered around 50 percent of the vote for most of that time, though there was even back then a slight slope downward for the GOP. In the 1970s, white flight from Illinois picked up steam, the departing whites replaced by a continuing influx of browns. Thus, today Illinois Democrats dominate the state: All statewide officials and two thirds of all Illinois state legislators and congressmen are Dems.
So, the Illinois Republican Party risked irrelevance even before the current Trump loyalty test imbroglio.
The irony is that I think a majority of Illinois voters—Trumpers, old-fashioned Republicans, and many suburbanites—would probably oppose the Illinois Democratic Party, which is quite liberal on spending and taxing, and is typically caught up in embarrassing corruption scandals.
But can you put Humpty Dumpty back together, and if so, how?
The Illinois GOP will have to develop a message beyond: “We’re not them, so vote for us.” And a worthy message will be difficult to craft, as Illinois is in a world of financial hurt, which will be painful to exit.
Trump has a primal need to be in the limelight, so I expect he will wage a loyalty test campaign across the nation and in Illinois. This will cause many Downstate Republican candidates, where Trump is very popular, to link themselves with the former president. These candidates will win primary elections and probably the generals at the district level.
In the suburbs, anti- and pro-Trumpers will battle it out in the primaries, and probably end up losing even more seats to the Dems than they hold now. Statewide GOP candidates will likely fail, absent extraordinary candidates with something appealing to say.
Trump will be focused on regaining the presidency in 2024, either through the GOP, or maybe a new party. If Trump works within the GOP, he will drive out a slice of the party’s voters.
In the meantime, the Biden Administration may prove too liberal and spendthrift for many to stomach. This could drive moderate Dems in the suburbs into the arms of a new Party of Lincoln, or something like that, maybe started by old-line GOPers disaffected from Trump, such as Adam Kinzinger. To find a niche that could be built into competitiveness, this new party would probably have to be conservative on fiscal matters and tolerant on social issues.
Nobody ever said democracies were easy or other than messy. If they were, there would be more of them. Our job as citizens is to participate in a robust, constructive way to keep ours going.
