Last year, former state Rep. Jeanne Ives held incumbent Bruce Rauner to a very weak 51.5-48.5 win in the Illinois GOP primary for governor, and she may not be done making trouble for her party yet. The Chicago Sun-Times Lynn Sweet reports that there’s a mysterious poll in the field testing Ives in a hypothetical matchup with freshman Democratic Rep. Sean Casten, and when Sweet asked Ives about her interest in running for the 6th District, the former state representative very much did not rule it out.
Instead, Ives responded by saying, “We’ve you know, this for me it’s always been a team decision,” and added, “I don’t do anything without my team supporting it and we’ve not made a decision on any race at all.” Ives said little about the poll itself, declaring, “You know, I don’t control that.” This suburban Chicago seat swung from 53-45 Romney to 50-43 Clinton, and as we’ll discuss, it’s unlikely Ives is the ideal GOP candidate to reclaim it.
Last year, Ives launched a racist and transphobic ad against Rauner that included a deep-voiced actor in a dress telling the governor, “Thank you for signing legislation that lets me use the girls bathroom.” The spot also included a man in a hoodie wearing a bandana around his face expressing his appreciation to Rauner for obsensably making the state “a sanctuary state for illegal immigrant criminals,” as well as a woman sporting in a pink protest hat meant to invoke the Women’s March saying that the governor now had Illinois families “pay[ing] for my abortions.” Ives’ campaign responded to the firestorm by saying, “The ad represents Gov. Rauner's chosen constituents based on the policy choices he made.”
Former Lt. Gov. Evelyn Sanguinetti is already challenging Casten, and there’s very little love lost between her and Ives. Sanguinetti was Rauner’s running made during last year’s campaign, a race where Ives refused to endorse the ticket in the months after the primary. Instead, Ives continued to pillory Rauner until the last possible moment.
Days before Election Day, Ives was asked if she’d done everything she could to aid Rauner in the general and she responded, “That was never my job. I was very upfront with people." Ives did say she’d vote for Rauner over Democrat J.B. Pritzker, but she also took the time to (correctly) predict the governor would lose.
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