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It worked once. Will it work again?
Four years ago, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, working with the Democratic Governors Association, spent millions of dollars to promote a Republican gubernatorial candidate — Darren Bailey — whom he was sure he could defeat in the 2022 general election.
With Pritzker’s help, Bailey won a contested GOP primary and then went on to sound defeat against Pritzker.
Four years later, Pritzker is running for re-election while Bailey, again, is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge him.
Will history repeat itself? Perhaps.
Pritzker on Monday launched a political broadside against Bailey, denouncing him as “way too conservative for Illinois” and “not fit to serve the people of Illinois.”
“Here we go again. The last time we saw this sort of language, the governor was prepared to spend a fortune to help nominate Bailey in the 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary,” Springfield political analyst Rich Miller wrote.
Pritzker spent, according to one account, roughly $37 million, much of it funneled through the Democratic Governors Association, on televised ads, “that either attacked Bailey’s primary opponent, Richard Irvin, or raised Bailey’s conservative profile.”
It may seem counter-intuitive that Pritzker’s ads touting Bailey as “too conservative” would be viewed as a positive for Bailey. But the strategy worked because it appealed to conservative GOP voters who shared Bailey’s values and separated Bailey’s candidacy from the rest of the pack.
The political rope-a-dope ploy was originally conceived by former Missouri Democratic U.S. Sen. Clair McCaskill, who used it to win re-election in 2012.
Facing a tough re-election campaign as a Democrat in a state trending Republican, McCaskill identified Republican U.S. Rep. Todd Akin as the politically weakest candidate in the GOP primary field.
The McCaskill campaign then launched a series of ads castigating Akin for his conservative views that were an anathema to liberals but appealing to conservatives.
Akin subsequently won the GOP primary but, due to his weaknesses as a general election candidate, lost to McCaskill in the general election by 400,000-plus votes.
In her political memoir, McCaskill bragged about influencing the GOP primary with her Akin ad campaign. Learning from McCaskill, other politicians including Pritzker subsequently adopted the same approach.
The ploy has drawn criticism from those who believe that one party should not interfere in the other party’s primaries. But in love, war and politics, all is, if not fair, certainly acceptable.
At the same time, supporters of the approach argue, properly, that Republican voters who succumbed to the rope-a-dope tactic are at fault for not recognizing the Democrats’ strategy.
It’s no secret in Illinois, certainly not by 2026. That’s why it’s unclear if uber-liberal Pritzker will repeat the multimillion-dollar advertising campaign or simply fire occasional blasts, like his lengthy Monday news release castigating uber-conservative Bailey.
While Pritzker’s 2022 strategy to boost Bailey in the GOP primary was effective in guaranteeing a general election win, it seems clear that Pritzker would have won no matter who his GOP opponent was.
Illinois is a solid Democratic state where Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2014.
At the same time, Pritzker’s status as a multibillionaire gives him access to unlimited campaign funds.
Little has changed on the political landscape since 2022, with the exception that the Illinois Republican Party has become even weaker due to internal power struggles and a shortage of financial resources.
That puts Pritzker in a dominant position to win in November, even if he does not get the opponent of his choice.
