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With fewer than five months before the November election and serious political headwinds facing the party, the Illinois GOP was struck another blow Wednesday as party infighting led to the resignation of its chairman, Springfield attorney Don Tracy.

Tracy had come under fire most recently for his handling of a delegate scandal involving now-former Party Vice Chair Mark Shaw at last month’s state GOP convention and contention from his detractors that there would be a likely vote to remove him as chair in the coming weeks. He had already survived a challenge to his chairmanship last year.

Tracy instead announced in a letter to party officials Wednesday afternoon that he would step aside after 3 1/2 years as party chairman.

“When I took on this full-time volunteer job in February 2021, I thought I would be spending most of my time fighting Democrats, helping elect Republicans, raising money to pay for more Party infrastructure, and advocating for Party unity,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, however, I have had to spend far too much time dealing with intra-party power struggles, and local intra-party animosities that continued after primaries and county chair elections.”

In his letter, Tracy called the state central committee’s handling of Shaw’s situation “a direction of the state party I am not comfortable with.”

“In better days, Illinois Republicans came together after tough intra party elections,” he wrote. “Now, however, we have Republicans who would rather fight other Republicans than engage in the harder work of defeating incumbent Democrats by convincing swing voters to vote Republican.”

Tracy’s resignation takes effect on the appointment of a successor or July 19, the day after the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Here is Tracy’s full resignation letter.

Patrick Pfingsten

@pfingstenshow

patrick@theillinoize.com