'We got shellacked': Election results put spotlight on Illinois GOP's future

Correction: This article misstated the year Republicans lost the Illinois House. It was 1997.

While much has been said about the lack of political headway Republicans made nationally during Tuesday's midterm elections, the Illinois GOP might have had one of the toughest nights among the lot.

An anticipated "red wave" never materialized nationwide, and hopes that Illinois Republican challengers could eke out some tight races were quickly and decisively dashed as well.

Illinois Democrats hung onto all the statewide offices and a supermajority in the state legislature. Tuesday's results included the upsets of suburban Republican state House incumbents such as Keith Wheeler of Oswego and Chris Bos of Lake Zurich. And Deb Conroy became the first Democratic DuPage County Board Chairman in more than 100 years.

"There were many who thought we hit rock bottom two years ago, but some of us predicted we hadn't hit rock bottom yet," said Collin Corbett, a longtime Illinois GOP operative who runs Cor Strategies. "Well, here we are. We got shellacked."

Many party stalwarts and political pundits said the trouble started with the primaries and a lack of "quality candidates," beginning with GOP gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey, who lost to incumbent Gov. J.B. Pritzker by 11 percentage points.

"It doesn't do us any good to nominate people who can't win," former Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican, said bluntly. "We need to have candidates, particularly at the top, who are not going to hurt the rest of the ticket."

It hasn't always been this way for the Illinois GOP.

At the peak of the state party's power in the mid-1990s, Edgar was governor and both state legislative chambers were controlled by Republicans. They also controlled most of the statewide offices. Nationally, Dennis Hastert, a longtime congressman from Yorkville, was beginning his near-decade-long run as speaker of the House, putting him third in line for the presidency.

Their reign wouldn't last long, though.

The next Republican governor, George Ryan, would wind up in federal prison, the Republicans lost control of the state House in 1997 and the state Senate six years later. As for Hastert, he is now remembered for sexually abusing several male students when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach in the 1970s and illegally paying hush money to one of them, leading to a 15-month federal prison sentence.

Tuesday was another major blow to the state party's legacy.

"To pretend (Tuesday) wasn't an underperformance would be sticking your head in the sand," Corbett said.

While election results won't be official for several days, no one is expecting any major shift among the state's races when those numbers are certified.

"It was a disappointing night, no doubt about it," said Illinois GOP Chairman Don Tracy. "We lost several close races I thought we'd win. But there's about 175 million reasons why we lost, which is the amount of money Pritzker put into his campaign."

But many experts aren't so sure the Democrats caused all of Tuesday night's carnage at the ballot box. Many blame former President Donald Trump for the party's current state.

"Until so many Republican voters stop looking as if they accept Trump as their savior, these elections are destined to go down the toilet for us," said Arlen Gould, a former staffer on many high-profile Illinois GOP campaigns. "And it's never going to come back as long as we're a party of election deniers and grievances."

Messaging didn't resonate with Illinois voters, either, others argue. Like many GOP candidates elsewhere, Illinois Republicans ran their races mainly focused on safety and the economy.

"Everybody said this election was about crime and inflation," said Tim Schneider, the state GOP chairman from 2014 to 2021. "But suburban women voted pro-choice, and they voted on the abortion issue, which I believe sunk us."

It could take a while for the Illinois Republican Party to be viable again, some said. They blame extremists on the far-right spectrum of the party for pushing many moderate Republicans or independent voters away.

"When Illinois Republicans put up well-qualified moderates or moderate conservatives, they can do very well," said Dick Simpson, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "What happened in Illinois is they put forward weak candidates who were too extreme."

Republican congressional candidate Catalina Lauf, who was trying to unseat Democratic incumbent Bill Foster for his seat that covers large portions of the Western and Southwestern suburbs, claimed at one point during the campaign that schools were providing litter boxes for students who like to dress as anthropomorphic animals - a claim that has been repeatedly debunked. She lost by nearly 12 points.

"The Republicans really hurt themselves," Simpson said. "If they want to win, they have to find a more pragmatic approach to politics."

Tracy, who's been at the helm of the Illinois GOP for less than two years, said he's open to changing the way things have been done in the past, including endorsing candidates at the primary level.

"We need to revisit that policy of not trying to influence the primary," he said.

Corbett also believes many votes weren't necessarily cast for Democrats as much as they were "voting against Republicans."

"We've got to rebuild from the bottom up, and that's going to take time," he said.

That may not be an easy task, some complain.

"I don't think that we are recruiting well enough and getting the right types of candidates to win the general elections, and a lot of that has to do with the stigma," Schneider said. "If you're a Republican today, you're a Jan. 6 insurrectionist, and if you're a Republican, it's hard to get past that label the media has put on Republicans."

Many of the pundits agree that potential Republican candidates might shy away from the party for fear of being painted with the same broad brush as those with extremely conservative views.

"I'm sure it's discouraged people who may want to run, but are afraid," Edgar said.

Gould believes in many cases, any stigma attached to the Republican Party was earned by many of the party's long-held platforms.

"We're on the wrong side of history with abortion, gay marriage and LGBTQ rights. We're wrong," he said. "And what are we offering now? What are our programs? What do we stand for other than negativity?"

But for all the self-inflicted wounds by Illinois Republicans, it's still worth noting that Illinois has been a heavily blue state for some time now, and the congressional and state legislative districts were redrawn recently to not only maintain but increase that advantage.

Democrats also benefitted from having a pro-labor constitutional amendment question on the ballot this year, which increased turnout for union workers, widely regarded as Democratic voters or Democrat-leaning voters.

Republicans were also overwhelmingly outspent by Democrats.

"All of that works against the Republicans," said Kent Redfield, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Hours after the election, House Minority Leader Jim Durkin announced he was giving up his leadership post, saying it's time to "rebuild with new leaders."

Edgar, who still regularly gets asked to reenter the political arena, agrees with Durkin.

"We need to move on from Trump, and I think the Democrats need to move on from Biden," he said. "We all need new blood."

Tracy said Tuesday's results stung, but he's not sure what could have changed the party's fortunes. "I'm head of the party, so obviously I can't deny responsibility," he said, "but I haven't heard anybody so far say we could have done anything differently."

And the Illinois GOP may not have as much time as they'd like to right their ship. Democrats are pushing to move up the 2024 primary to be one of the first in the nation. That could put the primary as early as February 2024 instead of late June, as it was this year.

• Daily Herald staff writer Russell Lissau contributed to this report.