Former Illinois Republican Chairman Pat Brady endorsed Democratic U.S. Rep. Sean Casten in a series of ads on Thursday, saying Republican challenger Jeanne Ives, a hard-line social conservative and backer of President Donald Trump, was “too extreme” for the suburban district.
Brady’s decision to back the first-term Casten, of Downers Grove, over Ives, a former state representative of Wheaton, reflects the turmoil that has existed within the state GOP over the last several years as its socially conservative and moderate factions have struggled for control and party identity in an increasingly Democratic state.
“I’m Pat Brady, a lifelong Republican, but I can’t support Jeanne Ives for Congress. Ives makes Trump look reasonable. She’s attacked same-sex families, even questioned the science behind climate change and the coronavirus. Ives is on the wrong side of history,” Brady says in one ad.
In a second ad, Brady touts Casten without mentioning Ives, saying the Democrat “makes decisions based on facts, never politics. He’s worked across the aisle to protect our health and get our economy moving again.”
Brady, of St. Charles, is a resident of the west and northwest suburban 6th Congressional District, where Casten upset veteran Republican U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam of Wheaton two years ago. Brady backed Roskam in that race.
Like the state GOP, the congressional district is finding its own identity. Once containing the heart of DuPage County’s rock-ribbed Republicans, the district has shifted Democrat while retaining parts of its social conservatism centered around Wheaton. The district favored Democrat Hillary Clinton by 7 percentage points over Trump in 2016.
Casten said in a statement that he was “honored” to receive the Brady endorsement.
“I believe that public officials should always lead with their values,” Casten said. “Jeanne Ives has made it clear that her values don’t represent the 6th District, and Pat Brady has made it clear that her values don’t represent the Republican Party.”
The state’s current Republican leadership — Chairman Tim Schneider, National Committeeman Richard Porter and National Committeewoman Demetra Demonte — came to Ives’ defense in a joint statement that contended “identifying and labeling Pat Brady as a Republican is false and misleading.”
“Pat Brady is a liberal Democrat and has been for some time. Sean Casten may have the backing of political hacks but Jeanne Ives is supported by hard working taxpayers,” the statement said.
Ives weighed in on Twitter, saying: “Of course Pat Brady endorsed Sean Casten. Amoral, ruling class political hacks stick together.”
In response, Brady, now a lobbyist, said, “I’m still a Republican but I can’t embrace the Ives extreme agenda, which does not in my opinion represent the 6th Congressional District.” He said Ives’ “rabid response” to his decision to back Casten and her past controversial history were reasons why she is “temperamentally ill equipped for public office.”
Ives has had a complicated relationship with the state GOP. After six years in the Illinois House, she nearly upset then-Gov. Bruce Rauner in the 2018 GOP primary.
In that campaign, she ran an ad using exaggerations and misleading statements to attack Rauner’s conservative credentials with actors mockingly saying “thank you” to him for expanded transgender, abortion and immigration rights.
Schneider, who is now coming to Ives’ defense, was Rauner’s hand-picked state GOP chairman and denounced the 2018 ad. He said it did not reflect the Illinois Republican Party, called it a “cowardly attempt to stoke political division” and asked her to apologize and remove it. She did neither.
State Republicans who are running a “races to watch” online program to help raise funds for a variety of contenders did not include Ives. State GOP officials said she declined to participate in the fundraising effort, but they support her candidacy.
Brady said it was the 2016 ad that showed Ives’ beliefs were “too extreme for the district” — a theme echoed on other social media ads the Casten campaign began rolling out Wednesday.
“She’s about as far right as you can go of any candidate in the country,” he said. “But compounding that, I think she disqualified herself from any public office with that ad she ran two years ago, which to me reflects really poor judgment, particularly the fact that she never disavowed it after Republicans and Democrats condemned it.”
Ives launched her own half-minute cable-TV ad campaign Thursday with a biographical ad recounting her Army and legislative background. Her campaign is spending at least $43,228, cable industry records show, and running a minutelong version on social media.
Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.
Brady, a resident of the district, was state GOP chairman from 2009 to 2013 and previously was a Republican national committeeman for the state. He resigned the top Republican post after endorsing same-sex marriage, angering social conservatives who said his position countermanded a plank in the state Republican platform that specified marriage can only take place between a man and a woman. Brady said his support was a personal, not party, position.
Among those pushing for Brady’s ouster at the time was state Sen. Jim Oberweis of Sugar Grove. Oberweis is the Republican nominee challenging first-term Democratic U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood of Naperville in the neighboring urban and exurban 14th Congressional District.
Underwood, who defeated veteran GOP U.S. Rep. Randy Hultgren of Plano, also launched her first ad of the general election campaign, a half minute spot aimed at demonstrating she has traveled throughout the district and had three measures signed into law, including one aimed at lowering the cost of insulin drugs. Cable industry records show she is spending $190,584 to air the spot.
Twitter @rap30
