All eyes were on Illinois' Tuesday Republican primary as grass-roots took on establishment.
Conservative State Rep. Jeanne Ives, railing against the “political class” and vowing a political revolution, defied polls and pundits with her close defeat (51.7 to 48.3 percent) to moderate Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.
In losing to Rauner by less than 20,000 votes out of more than 700,000 cast — roughly two votes per precinct — Ives nonetheless rallied conservatives throughout the Prairie State in an insurgent campaign that many are now likening to Ronald Reagan’s almost-successful challenge to President Gerald Ford in 1976.
“I was beaten by a fake Republican who wasn’t afraid to lie about my record,” Ives told Newsmax on Wednesday, hours after Rauner claimed victory over her. “People knew I was authentic for standing up and stood up on issues they cared about — illegal immigration, abortion, and handouts from the state government when it’s broke.”
When Ives, 53, a West Point graduate, former U.S. Army officer, and mother of five, began the campaign against Rauner, she was virtually unknown statewide. By January, the Wheaton lawmaker had rallied the opposition to him within the Republican Party on what she branded as his betrayal of conservative principles. Polls still showed her trailing the governor by more than 40 percentage points.
Then came what many Illinois Republicans call simply “the commercial.”
Produced by conservative media maestro Dan Proft and patterned on public service spots in which citizens thank their governors for something they have done, Ives’ spot featured an actress playing a young woman thanking Rauner for making it possible for “Illinoisans to pay for my abortion” — a reference to his signing legislation making possible for the first time taxpayer-funded abortions for state employees through their medical insurance.
In the same spot, a businessman thanks the governor for the $2.4 billion bailout of the Exelon energy holding company, which was passed on to consumers through rate increases.
A woman wearing a Chicago Teachers Union sweatshirt offers thanks for bailing out the union’s pension fund and giving “[Chicago Mayor] Rahm Emmanuel all he wanted.”
A masked bandit thanks Rauner “for making Illinois a sanctuary state” and a man dressed as a transgender thanks him “for letting me use the girl’s room” — a reference to another measure Rauner signed permitting transgender Illinoisans to change their gender on their birth certificates.
“A cowardly attempt to stoke political division," is how State GOP Chairman Tim Schneider blasted the Ives spot. Bruce Johnson, head of the state’s largest LGBT organization, charged that “Jeanne Ives is launching a campaign of division and rancor.”
“This ad highlighted all the crap [Rauner] had put in place and why National Review did a cover story calling him ‘the worst Republican governor in America,” Ives told me. “My husband and I are not on board with men in the girls’ locker room — and a lot of other Illinoisans aren’t either.”
Ives’ campaign never backed down on their controversial commercial and, in fact, were able to increase its time on the airwaves. Having already donated $500,000 to Ives, multimillionaire Dick Uihlein, a strong cultural conservative, pumped $2 million more into her coffers after the commercial was shown.
Overall, Ives said, “Dick’s support and the $1.5 million we got from small contributors meant we raised about $4 million. But with my opponent spending $70 million, the odds were against us.”
But with the ranks of volunteers at her campaign headquarters swelling and the considerable earned media she got from campaign appearances clearly winning over undecided voters, Ives was gaining momentum in March.
“Rauner won by running relentless commercials that lied about me,” she said. “Even the media called him out on his deceptive campaign ads.”
The sole one-on-one encounter between the Republican candidates included both Rauner and Ives talking about the man all Illinois Republicans love to hate: Mike Madigan, speaker of the state House for 32 years, and once dubbed by Chicago Magazine as “the real governor of Illinois.”
According to Ives, the Rauner campaign “took excerpts from my remarks about Madigan and ran a commercial somehow suggesting I was his best friend in the legislature. And I fought Madigan on just about every issue!”
Ives emphasized that “everyone who saw the spot and understood politics — even [Chicago Tribune columnist] Eric Zorn, a liberal Democrat — agreed this was a low blow and untrue. Rauner ran them a lot at the end and they were probably key to his edging me out.”
As for the fall contest between Rauner and Democrat J.B. Pritzker, Ives has no opinion but notes, “I would have offered voters a clear alternative to Pritzker and his record on taxes, spending, guns and political corruption, which is an everyday event in Illinois. Right now, voters don’t have that alternative.”
Regarding her next political move, Ives said: “I could have remained in the legislature but I gave up my seat because I felt our governor should be challenged. As for 2020, [Democratic Sen. Dick] Durbin is so disrespectful of his opponents, I think opposing him would be a worthy task. But I’m not looking at that. What I’m thinking about is that we have a movement and a good cause that came out of this campaign. Right now, that’s the most important thing of all.”
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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