Illinois GOP’s turn toward Trump keeps moderates at home

MILWAUKEE — Donald Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party shows itself in the platform priorities approved here at the convention and the people who are now influencing the Illinois Republican Party.

With all the hoopla from inside the convention hall at Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum, it’s easy to miss the people left outside of the arena and the party.

Among them: Adam Kinzinger, who was once viewed as the future of the GOP. He was a fresh-faced military vet who, as a congressman, voted with Trump more than 90 percent of the time.

But then he committed the Cardinal Sin of today’s GOP: Kinzinger not only spoke out against Trump’s 2020 election lie, he served on the January 6th committee.

Today, he’s a former congressman.

“No, not at all,” he said Tuesday when asked if he had any regrets. “There are certainly days I wish I wasn’t in the middle of this. Not that that I wish I belonged to the GOP. There’s no sense of loss there. But a year and a half of me being out of politics and I’m still a controversial figure.”

He’s not alone.

Former Illinois House Minority Leader Jim Durkin, once a convention fixture who delivered delegates for John McCain in 2008, puts it bluntly: “This party left me.”

“It’s unbelievable we’re left with a pathological liar, a narcissist and a bully against a person who no longer has the ability to serve mentally or physically,” he said. “But we’re left with no options.”

Former two-term Republican Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar points out that state Republicans are losing elections and influence as the party follows Trump to the right.

“In Illinois, it hurts us to have a party that really is pretty much controlled by a faction that doesn’t appeal to the majority in the state,” he said.

Illinois Republican State Central Committeeman Aaron Del Mar maintained in an interview with WGN that there are Republicans in the state and around the country who may not be Trump fans but who still want to make sure Illinois is safe.

But the MAGA makeover has drowned out, or forced out, many of Illinois’ more moderate Republicans.

“When you look back to where our woes in the State of Illinois started, I look back 20, 30, 40 years ago, and those were the people that were in charge,” said delegate and former lawmaker Darren Bailey. “Their centrist mentality developed… it created an attitude to where you can’t tell the difference — you couldn’t tell the difference between a Republican and a Democrat. And I wholeheartedly believe that that’s what has brought about many of our problems.”

What’s good for the national party isn’t always good for state Republicans. Trump lost Illinois by 17 points in 2020, and with the suburbs increasingly voting blue, it’s unclear how a push further to the right will enable them to challenge Democrts in Chicago and elsewhere in Illinois in a more meaningful way.

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