Ahead of the Illinois primary election in late June, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, invested heavily in the gubernatorial campaign of Republican State Senator Darren Bailey — presumably under the belief that Bailey would prove an easier-to-defeat opponent in the general election. As RedState’s Bob Hoge noted at the time:
Pritzker, who received a stunning 92.3 percent of votes as of writing, won the Democratic Primary. He used a tactic familiar to those of us in California—candidates spend heavily to promote their preferred opponent because they believe they can easily defeat them in the general election. Pritzker reportedly “spent millions trying to get the rival he want[ed]Increase[d] his already sizable advantage in the state this fall.”
Bailey, a farmer from Xenia, received former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and is strongly pro-life, a position which Pritzker believes he can use against Bailey:
Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune who is seeking his second term, and the Democratic Governors Association spent heavily on advertising to help Bailey win the GOP primary, including with ads noting he is “100% pro-life.”
Bailey however, plans to fight
“We’re going to send a message to the Republican establishment that we will not be bullied into sacrificing our principles to elect their candidates,” he told a crowd at a campaign stop in rural Illinois this month.
Bailey was interviewed by Cameron Arcand in July. When asked about his appeal to rural communities, Bailey pointed out how that’s also a winning message for Chicago’s urban-dwellers:
I think that’s the reason I faced so much opposition in the primary because I’ve been very vocal about the fact that Illinois would be better served you know emulating a model much like Indiana does where we spread opportunity across the state and we grow the entire state instead of the Northern part. Southern Illinois had been dependent on oil and coal for decades. The Democrats tax it out of existence, which is quite interesting. They’re regulating oil out of existence. And then they turn around and wonder why our energy bills have doubled and why we’re going to experience rolling blackouts and brownouts this summer.
People were puzzled as to why diesel and gasoline are now more than $6. It’s because we’re not producing them. These natural resources are available to us, but bad decisions can have serious consequences. It’s also important to note that Chicagoans are often frustrated. They’re not being well represented.
The life of a Chicago resident is more restricted than that of residents in the rest. Because of all the unnecessary taxes and regulations they have, the cost of their rent, food and gas is much higher than elsewhere in the state. This is why I believe that my method of government got me to this point. It’s communicating hope and ideas and a better future to the people… So when they have this guy show up, who’s got this Southern accent, who’s a farmer, who’s four hours south, they seem to be intrigued and they listen.
Pritzker, three months away from the general elections, is not wasting any time attacking Bailey. He’s airing an attack ad, in which he accuses Bailey of “taking government money.” “Guess who’s really paying for Darren Bailey’s campaign for governor?” the ad asks.
Jacob Rubashkin of Inside Elections, an analyst, noted this as a bit of sheer chutzpah from the man who spent $24 Million in the primary. He himselfBailey’s support.
Quite the chutzpah from J.B. Pritzker — who spent $24 million in the GOP primary to defeat Richard Irvin and help Darren Bailey — to run a campaign ad that begins: “Guess who’s really paying for Darren Bailey’s campaign for governor?”
(The obvious answer to this question is, “you” pic.twitter.com/Lb7sRZF9kC
— Jacob “Inside Elections is hiring” Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) August 2, 2022
Bailey now has a blistering reply. In a two-and-a-half-minute video (no grainy photos, no “special effects”), Bailey stares straight into the camera and gives an unabashed defense of his business, his experience, and the working people of Illinois.
Friends, I wanted to take a moment to address out-of-touch billionaire J.B.’s latest attack. Here’s the thing: J.B. Pritzker made a TV ad mocking me for owning a company and keeping people working in difficult economic times.
J.B. Pritzker: You were born with a silver spoon. From your family, you inherited billions. Millions of dollars are stashed on exotic islands most people have not heard about. You’ve never woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, worrying about keeping a job or managing payroll. You’ve literally never worked a day in your life. And you’re criticizing me for how I run my farm? You dare to criticize me for how I run my farm?
You’re the trust fund kid on the school playground, pushing all the regular kids around and making fun of their bagged lunches. You’re the guy who ignores the speed limit on your custom-made, one-of-a-kind boat while the rest of us worry about the price of gas.
Let me tell you what a hard day’s work looks like. It’s waking up before the sun comes up to pack 18 hours of hard physical labor into a single day during harvest. It’s putting on your work boots, running tractors, plowing fields, and bandaging up calloused hands so that you can wake up the following day and do it all over again. It’s worrying about crops when the weather is too dry, too wet, too hot, or too cold. It’s exhaustion in every bone in your body but knowing that people and jobs depend on you to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
All over Illinois there are people like me — farmers, yes, but also truck drivers, plumbers, electricians, grocery workers, mechanics, and so many others who put in the hours and sweat to provide for their families. These regular working folks make our state great and they’ll be the driving force behind our state’s recovery. It’s people like you, your Gold Coast friends who are running the show that run our country to its knees.
Governor Pritzker, you’re spending millions of dollars of your family’s money to attack me for how I run my business — the business that I built with my own two hands. Your soft-spoken friends from downstate farm laugh with you while you go about your day with no rigor. Well, you got one thing wrong: I don’t Think I can make a difference — I Learn moreIt’s possible to make a real difference. Because I know what it takes to work hard and build something…and you don’t have a clue.
Pritzker may believe he set up a straw man to knock down in November, but Bailey is showing he’s made of sterner stuff.
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