Racial pandering is more important.
He may very well have had friends in the leg...but it’s hard to imagine they wouldn’t have the same thing to the district regardless.
If there is indeed a GOP tsunami in November (I refuse to use the Orwellian term “red wave”, and I have little doubt whoever screams “VOTE RED!!!” the loudest will ensure a RAT victory in their region), I see this outcome as the best case scenario for Illinois, given the cards we’re being dealt:
District 6:
Keith Pekau (R) wins the seat, resulting in BOTH incumbents Marie Newman (D) AND Sean Casten (D) leaving office.
District 11:
Catalina Lauf (R, she was my runner up choice in ‘20 but in hindsight I’m 100% behind her in ‘22) wins the seat, resulting in incumbent Bill Foster (D) leaving office.
District 14:
Michael Coolidge/Jack Lombardi/Jim Marter (R) - Whichever one of them is the strongest in November, wins the seat, eliminating incumbent Lauren Underwood (D) from office.
District 15:
Mary Miller (R) wins the primary, defeating incumbent RINO Rodney Davis.
District 16:
Michael Rebresh (R), the only ACTUAL conservative in the race, defeats faux “conservative” Darin LaHood, which would mean BOTH LaHood and retiring RINO Adam Kizinger would be gone from Congress (hey, I can dream, can’t I?)
I think District 13 & District 17 have been redraw to be SAFE RAT (there’s not even a Republican running in the new 13th CD yet), but if there’s even a 1% chance a Republican could win either of those seats, I’d take it, so lets say Esther Joy King (R) wins IL-17 in a fluke or something.
Finally, District 8, I’m pretty sure its also been redrawn to be SAFE RAT, but it used to be Phil Crane’s old seat (though I imagine the new 8th CD doesn’t resemble the 8th from the ‘90s in any way). In any case, we’re talking huge fluke, so 83 year old conservative Chad Koppie (R) or
Peter Kopsaftis somehow manage to win in November. ;-)
District 5 (which has always based in the city of Chicago) also elected a Republican in a fluke during the “historic” GOP year of 1994, Michael Patrick Flannigan took out Dan Rostencowski (D), due to the latter being on trial for corruption. He was a one-termer and was quickly eliminated in ‘96 by “honest” (::scoffs::) RAT Rod Blagojevich. Again, I don’t know much the current 5th resembles the 1990s version. In my dream scenario, Republicans somehow manage to win that contest too. A hilarious outcome would be Blago runs as a Republican and gets his old seat back, though I don’t believe that’s possible because the impeachment articles against him specifically barred him from running for office again in Illinois.
In any case, having FIVE solid conservatives from Illinois would be great, compared to the pathetic ONE decent conservative (Mary Miller) we currently send to Washington. Even better, I’d LOVE to see comrade marxist RATS Newman, Casten, Foster, and Underwood all unemployed in January, along with RINO turds Davis, LaHood and Kizinger.