There's a good possibility of that, and it gives me serious concern. Quinn was a non-combiner and political gadfly most of his career, who "lucked" into becoming Lt. Governor because of his name ID and all his primary opponents being grade-D candidates. But once he took over for Blago, he quickly sold his soul to the combine in order to stay in office.
Last time around, they had the embarrassment of a non-combiner conservative winning the GOP nod because there were three combine candidates running in the GOP primary and the political establishment wasn't sure which horse to back. Quinn is a weak, unlikeable incumbent and Brady would have certainly beaten him if it weren't for last minute shenanigans they pulled off in Crook County, with the union thugs working their butts off on election day to manufacture enough votes for Quinn to offset the other 98% of the state going Republican.
They may have decided it's not worth the headache of trying to "fix" both parties primaries this time around (their ideal choice had been a Daley vs. Rauner general election), so they decided to put all their eggs in one basket and singled to Daley that they were no longer going to fund his candidacy. Now they can concentrate all their efforts on fixing the GOP primary for Rahm's puppet Bruce Rauner. It also helps their side that Dillard is a "conservative" combiner, so Dillard, Brady, and Rutherford will be fighting over all the pro-life and pro-gun GOP primary voters, while Rauner has the so-called "moderates" and Dem cross over voters exclusively on his side. He could very well win the GOP nomination with something like 28% of the vote.
Madigan could probably get Quinn another term if he wanted, but the thinking seems to be that the Dem brand is such damaged goods under Quinn that he won't be able to get any of the items on their evil agenda passed -- the failure of the RATs to pass gay marriage with their veto proof majorities being a prime example. If Madigan had another George Ryan style "Republican" to "work with", all his communist agenda could get a boost from having "bipartisan" support from the Governor. Rauner is both a liberal Democrat and a combiner running as a Republican, so there is no doubt he'd play ball with whatever they wanted.
And if you think this state couldn't get any worse, just wait...
(Interesting side note: with the new election law to prevent voters from selecting who we want for Lt. Governor now in place, all the GOP candidates have selected a running mate thus far, except Rauner.)