Kinzinger "Willing to Put My Career" on the Line Over Direction of GOP
Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Channahon) says he isn't ruling out a statewide run next year, especially if Democrats draw him out of his current congressional district.
If there’s a poll among Illinois Republicans for “most hated Republican,” the runaway winner would surely be Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Channahon).
He knows it. And he likely doesn’t care.
Kinzinger was one of the most outspoken GOP critics of Trump in the weeks following the 2020 election, as he pushed back on Trump’s false claims that the presidential election had been stolen. His frustration, and the anger from Republicans at him, boiled over after the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol and in following days when Kinzinger voted to impeach Trump.
“The day after the election, when [Trump] started this idea of a stolen election, that’s when I was off,” Kinzinger said. “The only way a democracy works and functions is if people believe that their vote counts and their voice is heard. It says look, I had my say, even if we lost, I had my say and now we’ve gotta go convince more people to agree with me. When you start saying that it’s stolen and you’ve convinced 74 million people and it’s completely untrue. You throw these conspiracy theories out that are debunked. When you convince 74 million people that voted for you that they weren’t just outnumbered, they were disenfranchised, that’s dangerous to democracy.”
Kinzinger, 43, and an Air Force veteran, whose L-shaped district runs south from Rockford then takes a stark easterly turn to the Indiana line, knows his criticism of Trump in a heavily Republican, pro-Trump district may be the end of his political aspirations.
“That, to me, is the kind of thing I am willing to put my career, and frankly, my life on the line for when I was in the military,” he said.
And his political aspirations were a hot topic even before the 2020 election.
Kinzinger confirmed Thursday he had been likely to jump into a statewide race, either for U.S. Senate or Governor.
“Before January 6th, I was really seriously looking at it. I hadn’t made a decision,” he said. “I was on the fence, in terms of “I’m a Republican in a blue state, this is going to be a tough battle.”
With his foreign policy chops, military experience, TV star looks, and engaging personality, many considered him a top tier contender against U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth in 2022.
While he says he’s not completely ruling out a 2022 bid at this point, and if Democrats draw him out of his congressional district, things could change.
“I certainly think that makes a statewide run far more likely,” he said.
But, Kinzinger says, he’s not changing his style whether primary voters would be angry with him or not.
“The truth isn’t pretty and it hurts. And some people get offended by it,” the six-term congressman said. “The GOP, frankly, is broken and where we are now, we’re not gonna win an election. We can appreciate what Donald Trump did, we want to keep the Trump base, obviously, we want to hear those voices, but this is not a route to survival.”
Kinzinger called out politicians of both sides for hypocrisy, including himself, for running up deficits while in power, and complaining about deficit spending when Democrats seized power in January.
“I think there’s always been some hypocrisy in politics, we’ve gotta accept that,” he said. “I think emergency spending is important, with COVID. I think with the economy coming back as quickly as it is, is due in large part to some of the early money that we spent, particularly on [the] Payroll Protection Program, vaccine development. There’s a role for that.”
And Kinzinger said he was “disappointed” some provisions in the GOP tax cut bill didn’t allow it to pay for itself.
He says Washington, and politics in general, need more people who are willing to tell the truth and govern from the middle instead of separating into, what he calls, “tribes.”
“It shows the importance of centering principles, something that you truly believe in that you advocate for.,” he said. “Yeah, there’s going to be some flex in different administrations, but when you just blatantly violate what you’re saying because it’s your guy in charge, that’s when you lose a lot of moral authority.”
And he says Republicans need to get focused on the policies that have made the party successful for years and move on from the Trump-based chaos of GOP policy since 2016.
“I don’t even know what the principles of the Republican Party are anymore,” he said.
