Illinois Republicans urged to look beyond traditional base as national
party courts unions
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[July 17, 2024]
By PETER HANCOCK,
HANNAH MEISEL
& ANDREW ADAMS
Capitol News Illinois
news@capitolnewsillinois.com
MILWAUKEE – A former Republican congressman from New York told Illinois
Republicans Tuesday that to win more elections in their deeply blue
state, they need to reach beyond the traditional conservative voting
base.
“We need to challenge ourselves to get out and talk to the people who
vote the least, talk to the people who have voted Republican the least,”
former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin told Illinois delegates to the GOP
convention in Milwaukee.
That includes finding new, persuadable voters within groups often
considered Democratic strongholds, he said.
“And don't just pander to them by saying, ‘I love Black people, vote for
me. I love Hispanic people, vote for me. I love Asian people, vote for
me.’ That doesn't work and it shouldn't work,” he said. “It's about us
being proud, principled conservatives, going to those voters who are
longtime disenfranchised Democratic voters and telling them it doesn't
have to be this way anymore.”
Zeldin, who served from 2015 to 2023 in the U.S. House from New York,
was the keynote speaker at the Illinois delegation’s breakfast meeting
Tuesday as they prepared for Day 2 of the national convention. Former
President Donald Trump received the presidential nomination on Monday,
along with his 2024 running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Unlike at many past Republican conventions, Illinois’ GOP delegation is
made up of mostly non-elected officials. And those elected officials who
did make the trip to Milwaukee are among the state’s most conservative –
including far-right U.S. Rep. Mary Miller of Oakland.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jul/17/images/ads/current/graue_sda_042021.png)
Miller, who is married to State Rep. Chris Miller, told the crowd she
was “proud of my husband and the work that the Illinois Freedom Caucus
is doing to fight back against the Democrats in Springfield.”
“I think I've heard my husband call (the General Assembly) the Bad Idea
Factory,” she said, later calling President Joe Biden’s border policies
“treasonous.”
In a rare availability with reporters afterward, Miller blamed the media
for Republicans’ losses in deep blue Illinois. When asked why she
thought more moderate Republicans weren’t at the RNC, Miller offered no
answer.
“Well, I don't know why those people aren't here,” she said. “But
President Trump is our leader, and we're here to support President
Trump.”
State Rep. Charlie Meier, R-Okawville, said while he wasn’t a member of
the Freedom Caucus, the fact that he gathered signatures for Trump shows
the ILGOP is a “big tent” party.
When asked if the party has room for “anti-Trumpers,” Meier said, “I
believe so.”
“Because look at it: The man stands for opportunity for everybody,”
Meier said. “I talked to a lot of people saying, ‘I don't like the man,
but I love his policies and I'm going to vote for him.’ We need those
people to vote for this platform.”
He said the “infighting” among the state’s GOP – which holds no
statewide offices and is relegated to a superminority in both chambers
of the General Assembly – “cost us seats and that is a problem that we
are working to correct."
On the convention floor Monday night, Republicans demonstrated that they
intend to target a major traditionally Democratic support group:
organized labor. Sean O’Brien, president of the International
Brotherhood of Teamsters, gave a primetime address that took aim at big
business, “corporate welfare” and called for bipartisan labor law
reforms. Unlike most other major union groups, which have endorsed
Biden, the Teamsters have not yet endorsed a presidential candidate.
After the breakfast Tuesday, state Sen. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro,
said O’Brien’s appearance at the convention marked a long overdue change
in the GOP’s own messaging.
“I think for a long time we have needed to get our message out better
that we know that we are pro-labor,” she said.
Bryant – a retired employee of the Illinois Department of Corrections,
former member of AFSCME Council 31 and retiree member of Laborers Local
773 – said her southern Illinois region is home to a high percentage of
state workers.
“To have (O’Brien) stand up there and say some of the things that I
think Republicans need to hear was really refreshing last night,” she
said. “Some things made me a little uncomfortable, though, because maybe
I haven't been doing the best job that I could even as a union member.”
Republicans’ relationship with organized labor in Illinois deteriorated
during the administration of one-term GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner, whose focus
on weakening public employee unions – chiefly AFSCME – contributed to a
two-year budget impasse that decimated state services.
Inside the convention hall, the theme of the day for Tuesday was “Make
America Safe Once Again,” a reference to crime rates in major American
cities like Chicago, which Republicans blame squarely on the Biden
administration.
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![](../images/071724PIX/news_b3.jpg)
Incoming Illinois Republican Party Chair Kathy Salvi speaks with
outgoing Chair Don Tracy at an Illinois delegation breakfast before
day two of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. (Capitol
News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jul/17/images/ads/current/guzzardos_lda_GENERIC_040524.png)
“And there's a lot that is in common between cities like Chicago and New
York and Atlanta and Baltimore and Philadelphia and elsewhere,” Zeldin
said. “There are these longtime Democratic voters disenfranchised by
Democratic policies, ready to vote for conservative solutions. But we
can't just expect them to show up on their own and start voting for us.”
Chicago is often held up as the Republican exemplar of a big city run by
Democrats with a major crime problem – South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott
name-dropped the city in a Monday night speech.
While murders in Chicago were higher in 2021 than at any point since a
nationwide crime wave in the mid-1990s, they’ve since fallen.
Zeldin said there are voters in major cities across the United States,
often assumed to be Democratic strongholds, that may be receptive to
Republican policies on issues like crime, school choice and immigration.
“And our message to Democratic voters in Illinois, Democratic voters in
New York, and independent minded voters who want to try something
different in 2024: ‘Don't let anybody take your vote for granted,’” he
said. “We as conservatives want to earn your vote, and we want to earn
keeping your vote.”
Zeldin also said Republicans should change some of their own election
strategies, including taking advantage of early voting and mail-in
ballot programs, which Democrats have utilized and many Republicans have
viewed with skepticism.
He said Republicans who “boycotted” in Nevada in reaction to a ramp-up
in early voting caused the narrow reelection of U.S. Sen. Catherine
Cortez Masto in 2022, when Democrats barely kept control of the chamber
with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.
“If we as a party decide that we want to boycott universal mail-in
balloting because we disagree with it, we will wake up – guaranteed – on
November 5 having already lost the state of Pennsylvania,” Zeldin said.
Outgoing ILGOP chair Don Tracy has pushed for mail-in ballot programs
and early voting. Kathy Salvi, who is slated to replace Tracy when he
officially steps down on Friday, is scheduled to address the Illinois
delegation on Wednesday.
Back in Illinois, Democrats on Tuesday resumed criticisms of Trump, his
vice president pick and his platform. Gov. JB Pritzker was slated to
speak in Milwaukee on Monday as part of Democrats’ RNC
counterprogramming, but those events were canceled following the
Saturday assassination attempt on the former president.
At an unrelated news conference in Chicago Tuesday, Pritzker said
political violence shouldn’t happen and he has never and would never
call for it.
But he resumed his condemnations of Trump’s candidacy.
“It's still true: Donald Trump is a convicted felon, an adjudicated
rapist, has been a congenital liar and is unfit for the office of
President of the United States,” Pritzker said. “Having said that, I am
very pleased that he remains relatively unharmed … and, of course,
saddened and I find it extremely tragic that someone with, apparently,
an assault weapon, killed people at that rally.”
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the Senate’s Judiciary Committee chair, noted
Vance – Trump’s vice president pick – blocked an appointment of a U.S.
attorney in the Northern District of Illinois to oversee federal
prosecutions in Chicago, leaving the post vacant.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jul/17/images/ads/current/ldn_sda_NILA_010924.png)
“Three times or more, I went to the floor and asked him, confronted him
with this decision, saying, ‘How can you be for law and order and talk
about stopping the scourge of fentanyl and other terrible things, human
trafficking ...’” Durbin said. “He said and repeated himself over and
over: his goal was to grind the Department of Justice to a halt.”
Vance has said the move was retaliation for what he believes is the
Justice Department’s unfair prosecutions of Trump in several federal
court cases, including the case a judge threw out Monday over Trump
illegally keeping classified documents after leaving office.
Republicans, meanwhile, were supportive of Trump’s choice of Vance.
“He's got a great story, he came from nothing. You know, he's self-made.
The man worked his tail off,” Rep. John Cabello, a police officer from
Machesney Park, told Capitol News Illinois. “Yeah, I think that's a good
fit for the story. It's the same thing that Trump did, you know, work
your tail off, build yourself and you know he's very knowledgeable. I
think it's a great pick.”
Jerry Nowicki contributed from Springfield.
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It
is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations
statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation
and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major
contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern
Illinois Editorial Association. |