Trump factor looms large in Illinois governor primary campaigns

Chicago Tribune (IL)

March 16--President Donald Trump isn't on Tuesday's ballot, but as the final weekend of the Illinois primary campaign arrives, his persona looms large.

As University of Illinois political scientist Christopher Mooney puts it: "There's a Trump aspect to everything in American politics at this moment."

For Republicans, it's a question of whether the enthusiasm that gave Trump more than 2 million votes and victories in 91 of the state's 102 counties in 2016 (despite an overall loss to Hillary Clinton here) will manifest itself in the primary for governor.

For Democrats, it's a matter of ensuring the protest energy that followed Trump's election through such groups as Indivisible and others have a demonstrable follow-through with people showing up at the polls.

But the Trump factor comes with contradictions for some candidates.

When Republican state Rep. Jeanne Ives explains to voters why she's challenging Gov. Bruce Rauner in the primary election, she cites the honor code of her West Point alma mater: "A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do."

The governor, Ives contends, lied to her and other social conservatives in 2014 when he said he had no social agenda, and she points to his signature on a law to expand abortion rights.

At the same time, however, the Wheaton legislator has embraced Trump and urges what she calls the "silent majority" that elected him to rise up against Rauner.

Trump's lies in office are well chronicled -- just Wednesday, he boasted that he made up facts on trade during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump also has a history of cheating, including his affair with actress Marla Maples that broke up his first marriage, and the current fallout from $130,000 paid by his lawyer to a porn star who goes by the name Stormy Daniels as "hush money" about an alleged affair.

How does Ives reconcile campaigning on an honor code that prohibits lying and cheating as a rationale to take on Rauner, while not only tolerating but actively promoting Trump? Asked that question recently, Ives paused for several seconds.

"For me, it's a personal affront to what Gov. Rauner has done because I'm part of that Republican caucus he lied to, OK?" she said. "So, it's a very personal thing. That's the thing. I can affect him (Rauner) and the outcome of this election. I can't necessarily affect Donald Trump."

On the Democratic side, Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth of Andersonville, the state coordinator of the umbrella group Indivisible Illinois, said the route of the 2017 women's march held a day after Trump's inauguration ultimately runs through the polling place in 2018 and beyond. The group has conducted voter registration efforts and pre-election candidate forums.

"Look, we can turn out for women's marches every single weekend, but if we don't change who's at the table making these rules, then we're just never going to make any progress," Manaa-Hoppenworth said. "We can't have folks at the table who have no sympathy for women, for marginalized groups."

The rejuvenated women's rights movement that followed Trump's election, coupled more recently with the #MeToo effort to combat sexual harassment, also has found increasing numbers of women seeking public office.

"It seems to me that if women are more represented when these rules are getting made that our government will be more transparent and maybe more efficient and more representative of the 51 percent of us that exist in this nation," Manaa-Hoppenworth said.

Democrats across the ballot have used Trump as a political pinata to seek energized support and to burnish liberal credentials, while blasting some primary opponents and the Republican governor for being "Trumplike" or Trump's "silent partner."

Much like the president's own rhetoric, the attack language Democratic candidates use against him can be harsh.

"Donald Trump is a racist and a xenophobe and a misogynist and a homophobe," Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker often says in his stump speech. A longtime Clinton backer and mega-donor to her 2016 campaign, Pritzker contends "there's no candidate running for governor that's done more to fight against Donald Trump."

Another Democratic governor contender, state Sen. Daniel Biss of Evanston, has been courting the groups spawned by Trump's victory as he seeks progressive backing from those who supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders' unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid.

"The Trump administration threatens the core values that we have held as a nation since our founding -- the values of pluralism, the values of inclusion, the values of equality, the values of justice. And worse, he threatens the core of our democracy," Biss said at a recent candidate forum.

Rival Chris Kennedy, looking to play the role of an outsider despite being a product of the iconic Massachusetts political family, has made similar attacks on Trump.

"It is possible to be the president and un-American at the same time. Trump's presidency has made this very clear," the Kenilworth developer told supporters in an email. "Since the beginning of his campaign, and throughout his presidency, Trump's rhetoric and policies continue to disavow everything we stand for as Americans."

And that's just rhetoric from the Democratic governor's race. In the eight-candidate field for Democratic attorney general, each hopeful has pledged to use the state's top law-enforcement position to position themselves against Trump policies on a state and national level.

Given the widespread anti-Trumpism in the Democratic primaries, it could be difficult for voters to decide which specific brand they like best.

"I think the problem in any election is about differentiating candidates. I don't know if they can differentiate themselves on that," Mooney said.

"These two primary races at the governor's level are pretty good examples of this issue of differentiation. Jeanne Ives has been very clear and very pointed about differentiating herself from Rauner in very specific ways," he said. "Whereas the Democrats have to say, 'Well, I've got this slightly different take on (things).' Nuances are a problem."

With Ives, there's not much nuance to her support for the president.

"I think we should have a working relationship with (Trump)," she said after a recent gathering of the Streeterville Organization of Active Residents at Water Tower Place.

"And look, I've been disappointed by a lot of other politicians who have lied about what their intentions are, have done the wrong thing. But you still work with them. You still work with them," she said. "But in the case of Rauner, I can actually affect change where he has personally lied about his policies."

Ives has supported Trump attacks on sanctuary cities and illegal immigration while criticizing Rauner's approval of legislation that would prevent local law enforcement from holding someone based solely on their legal status or detaining someone without a judicially issued warrant.

Ives' challenge means Rauner's attempts to distance himself from Trump have become a factor for the governor ahead of the primary, Mooney said.

"Rauner's spent his time ignoring (Trump), (the president) is sort of a pariah in the state, and that's annoyed the Trump supporters in the state, and then Jeanne Ives comes along," Mooney said.

"If she wouldn't have been there, raising (Rauner's) ambiguity about Trump and all of that, in the fall, the Democrat, whoever it would be, would definitely hammer him on Trump, associate him with Trump," he added. "But without Ives putting out these sort of RINO (Republican In Name Only) criticisms and so forth, those (Trump) people might have just gone ahead and would vote for (Rauner)."

Trump presents a problem for a Republican governor running in a Democratic-leaning state. For nearly two years, Rauner routinely has avoided using the president's name in public, and he skipped the 2016 GOP convention that nominated Trump.

Asked by reporters about Trump-proposed policies on immigration, health care and other issues and Rauner regularly demurs -- at one point saying he had "no obligation" to discuss "every policy change in Washington."

Instead, Rauner has focused his primary campaign on his frequent political target, veteran Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, going so far as to try to link Madigan to Ives despite vast ideological differences between the Democratic leader and the GOP challenger. The assertion rated a "Pants on Fire" from PolitiFact Illinois.

The election, Rauner told reporters, is "about the people against a corrupt, broken system. It's about the people of Illinois demanding more value for their taxes and a lower tax burden, the people of Illinois demanding more jobs, more economic opportunity and the people of Illinois demanding an end to the corruption in our system by getting term limits."

The governor said his campaign message is one of "unification" that transcends party labels.

But Rauner has had difficulty finding a base. His approval of legislation expanding taxpayer-funded abortions to women covered by Medicaid and state employee health insurance motivated Ives to challenge him. GOP conservatives viewed Rauner's move as a betrayal after he had vowed to veto the bill.

On the other hand, Rauner's support of the measure could help him if he makes it to the November general election, winning favor with GOP-leaning moderate suburban women, a critical demographic in an evolving collar county landscape.

Rauner followed that up, however, with his Tuesday veto of legislation that would have required the state licensing of gun shops. That's legislation those same suburban women, many of them mothers of school-age children, would support. Before then, however, Rauner has to win the primary election, and he knows the voting power of Downstate gun-rights supporters.

David Yepsen, the former head of the Paul Simon Public Policy Center at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, said the Trump impact in the primaries may only be just the beginning heading toward the outcomes of the November general election.

"There is a Trump effect, and it can be a harmful one to Republican chances in Illinois in November. There is a Democrat wave starting to form, and it manifests itself in the energy you see in these groups, the turnouts in primaries in other states," said Yepsen, a former national columnist for The Des Moines Register.

"It's history. It's the midterm election and the party in power (in the White House) is going to take a hit." he said. "In Illinois, Republicans don't have a lot of margin."

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