SPRINGFIELD — Illinois Republicans used their day at the State Fair Thursday to blame Democrats for crime, inflation and tax increases while calling for a focus on policy, not personality, as they head into a November election on a ticket led by presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has been rejected twice by the state’s voters.
New Illinois GOP Chairwoman Kathy Salvi opened a morning meeting by declaring that the party would be unified and “win in November 2024,” while subtly acknowledging the uphill battle for a party that has lost ground with the state’s electorate.
“We have a mission to elect Trump-Vance and all the candidates in our district,” Salvi told an audience of about 80 people at a joint meeting of the state central committee and the party’s County Chairmen’s Association, referring to the former president and his running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio. “So we have to find a way to bring people together. There’s no better way to do that than to bridge those gaps.”
With Republicans becoming the party of Trump, winning back suburban areas that once consistently carried GOP candidates to victory will be a tall order. The former president suffered 17-percentage-point losses in Illinois in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, pushing the state’s GOP into even greater irrelevance.
Democrats, who will hold their national convention in Chicago next week, control all three branches of state government, 14 of the state’s 17 congressional seats and both U.S. Senate seats.
Republicans at the fair downplayed Trump’s influence on local elections in recent years, accusing Democrats of drawing rigged electoral maps in their favor that were then signed by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Republicans also accused Pritzker of passing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax increases into the current state budget and continuing to provide public funding for the influx of migrants arriving in the Chicago area from the southern U.S. border.
“Taxes, cost of living, crime, corruption. This is the most corrupt state in the country,” Illinois Senate Republican Leader John Curran said in an interview before the Republican Party’s afternoon program at the state fairgrounds. “That’s what Gov. Pritzker’s Democratic allies have brought to Illinois.”
After a slight rain delay, a few hundred people gathered for a Republican rally on the fairgrounds’ lawn, where Salvi called Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a “disaster.”
“Think about this convention. They’re about to nominate someone who didn’t get a single vote,” Salvi said, referring to how Harris got the nomination after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race. “What about democracy? You know, in a lot of countries, that would be called a coup! But have you heard of that? Nothing. Nada. That’s something we could communicate.”
Illinois House Republican Leader Tony McCombie of Savannah told the crowd that the Democratic Party “wants to destroy small businesses, hurt our most vulnerable and make families feel like they have to depend on the government for everything.”
“Democrats have worked for years to try to convince the citizens of Illinois and our country that the Republican Party does not believe in democracy. Yet Democrats want non-citizens and criminals, I’m sorry, I mean justice-affected people, to vote,” McCombie said.
His remark was a reference to a new state law championed by progressive Democrats that changes the terminology for people convicted of felonies if they are part of a special diversion program.
McCombie did not mention that Trump was convicted of crimes earlier this year in his “bribery” trial in New York, though his sentencing was postponed after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that former presidents enjoy broad immunity for “official” acts. The former president has two other cases pending, both involving accusations that he conspired to steal Biden’s 2020 election victory.
McCombie said the November election is not just about the presidential race, but also the governor’s race in 2026. While a few Republicans have expressed interest in eventually running, Pritzker has not said whether he would seek a third term.
“Our participation in this race will be critical to determining the future leadership of Illinois,” McCombie said. “This election cycle is about us. It’s about us showing up.”
Illinois Republicans’ once-victorious platform of social moderation and fiscal conservatism has been gradually undermined by a growing embrace of social conservatism, including opposition to gay rights and abortion.
After Thursday morning’s meeting, Myles Nelson, a Republican committeeman for the Eastern Illinois metropolitan area near St. Louis, said that for the state party to make inroads in blue Illinois, it must convince voters to focus on policies rather than personalities.
“We need to focus on the issues that are bringing moderates and independents back from the suburbs: crime, corruption, the cost of living. Go get your groceries. Go get gas. Everybody feels it,” said Nelson, a Trump delegate to last month’s Republican convention in Milwaukee. “And what northern Illinoisans need to know is that Donald Trump’s policies were the right ones.”
Niki Conforti, a Republican who is challenging Democratic U.S. Rep. Sean Casten for his congressional seat in suburban Chicago, agreed that focusing on those issues is what should help the GOP regain support it has lost over the years in the suburbs.
“Crime, cost of living, inflation, these are the issues that people are concerned about today and are going to get them out to vote,” Conforti said. “We didn’t lose it overnight and we’re not going to win it back overnight. But we can make progress every election cycle and take back control.”
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