The Nowlan Political Roundup
Kinzinger, Trump, Big Money, the GOP—a lot to handle in one column. But I can do it, because each is a different-colored thread in a single piece of cloth.
North-central Illinois GOP congressman Adam Kinzinger has been sharply dismissive of former president Trump, which has caused furious blowback from his constituents. “Our district offices can barely function,” said one staffer, “as the circuits have been overloaded with irate calls from former supporters.”
The LaSalle County GOP recently gave 88 percent of its precinct committee vote to a censure of the 5-term, 43-year-old congressman. “Adam went to Washington,” said a friend of mine from his district, “and never came back.” Indeed, during the 2020 election cycle, when I was on the hustings, I had a beer after the speechifyin’ with LaSalle County GOP chair Larry Smith. He grumbled then that Kinzinger “hasn’t been in LaSalle County in six years!”
So, Adam has become the darling of suburban Dems and maybe 15-20 percent of GOP voters who, like me, agree with his criticism of Trump. Not a recipe for success in a statewide primary for US Senate or governor, unless he stirs up several opponents, and can then win with 30 percent or so of the vote.
Trump loyalists in my rural area appear to be sticking with the ex-president. They believe he speaks their blunt language to the powers that be and represents them more effectively than anyone ever has or ever will.
Their loyalty to him is fierce; to the GOP, their faithfulness is secondary, if at all.
For the near term, Trump needs a big objective, and that has to be the presidency in 2024. He will seek to become the first non-successive, two-term president since Grover Cleveland.
But the Trump Party, post-insurrection, will always be a minority in America, probably 35 percent or so of voters. GOP officials are desperate to make their party more than the Trump Party, but Trump will make that nigh impossible.
Trump is a cult figure, not a party leader. If you’re not for him 100 percent, you’re against him, to his mind. GOP candidates will have to pass the Trump loyalty litmus test, or face his wrath and that of his base.
In Downstate Illinois, Trump loyalty from candidates will come easy, and be mostly sincere. It will certainly be required to avoid a primary challenge next spring. I think the loyalty test will be trickier in the vote rich suburbs. I expect many district-level GOP primary contests between pro- and anti-Trump candidates.
Also here in Illinois, Big Money appears to have replaced party organizations as the critical element in election contests. Gov. J. B. Pritzker and billionaire investor Ken Griffin each put more than $50 million into the single contest over whether to tax the rich more than others, which Pritzker favored and lost. Without Griffin’s money to blanket the airwaves with trenchant advertising attacks on increased taxation, Priztker would likely have won.
Pritzker is vulnerable to defeat in a 2022 re-election bid. But who will credibly take on him and his money? (The governor spent $171 million of his own money in his election win in 2018.) The answer is only someone who can find a Daddy Warbucks funder of the Ken Griffin class.
Not to be cast aside entirely, the Illinois GOP this past week narrowly defeated a Trump conservative, and elected as state chair a calm, mainstream Republican lawyer from the remarkably successful Tracy Family of western Illinois. Tracy siblings operate and wholly own the 6,000-employee DOT Foods enterprise of tiny Mt. Sterling in equally miniscule Brown County.
Tracy may not himself be in the Griffin billionaire class (I don’t know), but he sure has the stature to get his phone calls returned from traditional, major GOP donors.
At present, The Illinois GOP holds no state offices and but one-third of legislative and congressional seats. It has no money, and an uncomfortable, at best, relationship with the Trump base; after all, the Tracy forces worked hard to eke out a narrow win over a Trump candidate for party chair.
Illinois needs a competitive two-party political system. I commend Don Tracy for taking on a thankless role, but I worry that the GOP, both nationally and in Illinois, is in for a rough ride until we get past the Trump Era.
Trump backer and suburban businessman Gary Rabine has already announced his candidacy for governor in the 2022 GOP primary. Expect more. Will Kinzinger join the fray? Stay tuned
