The Trump Primary
Both Congressman Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro) and former State Senator Darren Bailey are working to earn the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.
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OPINION
A new poll of the southern Illinois-based 12th Congressional District, where Congressman Mike Bost (R-Murphysboro) is facing a challenge from former State Senator and 2022 GOP gubernatorial nominee Darren Bailey, shows potential strengths and challenges for each candidate.
But the strategy of each campaign may be to curry favor of just one person: former President Donald Trump.
Suburban GOP consulting firm Cor Strategies commissioned the poll, which had 661 responses between July 5 and 8, the four days immediately following Bailey’s entrance into the race.
In a head-to-head matchup, Bost leads Bailey 43% to 37%, with 21% of respondents either unsure or without an opinion of the two candidates. Both candidates have near astronomical name ID. Bailey is 71% while Bost is 62%. Bost, by the way, has more than a dozen new counties in his district following the 2022 remap, likely driving down his name ID.
“Overall, I think its good news for both campaigns,” said Collin Corbett, the GOP operative who runs Cor Strategies, which administered the poll. “If I’m the Bost campaign, I’m comfortable with this, especially seeing how I can grow. If I’m the Bailey campaign, they should be out there crowing about how they just announced and they’re only six points down against an incumbent.”
The real albatross in the race is the potential endorsement of former President Donald Trump. Trump has embraced each man in the past and each man has previously endorsed or supported Trump. The Cor poll shows the former President with 53% of the GOP primary vote in the 12th district, nearly 40 points ahead of the second place candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
31% of voters polled by Cor indicated they would be more likely to vote for the candidate endorsed by Trump, likely leading to loads of pandering outreach to the former President.
Corbett says Bailey needs to find a message to contrast himself with Bost, an already conservative, popular congressman who voted (with knuckleheads, that’s me saying it, not Corbett) to throw out the results of the 2020 election and voted against a bipartisan debt ceiling deal earlier this year.
“If Bailey can’t [contrast], it’s literally all about Trump,” Corbett said. “Either Bailey gets Trump and maybe he wins or he doesn’t get Trump and he loses. Why would you get into a race like that if that’s literally your only chance at victory?”
Both candidates have already been to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago or Bedminster resorts to attempt to sway the former President. It’s proof both campaigns may put all of their eggs into the Trump basket in a desperate attempt to shamelessly pander to Trump for his endorsement. Hopefully it won’t resort to bad promposals or flash mobs on the front lawn of Mar-a-Lago.
If they do, they turn attention away from voters, and that’s a loss for everyone.
“There’s an audience of one in this campaign, and that’s Trump,” said Corbett. “But I can see Bost raising his name recognition and growing this from six to eight or nine, or ten or 11, and Trump isn’t going to move more than ten percent. If Bost does not get Trump’s endorsement and it goes to Bailey, it does not mean automatically that Bailey will win the race. Bost will still have a shot. It will be tough. At this point, it seems like it’s Bailey’s only hope.”
While Trump may already have the GOP nomination essentially sewn up by the time the Illinois primary rolls around in March, it’s hard to imagine why he would, or if, he would endorse in a race that does him little benefit.
Bost has an opportunity to potentially take Trump out of the mix by getting onto TV and digital early pushing a lot of ads on FOX News and other conservative platforms to help distance himself from Bailey early on. Bailey had to start a new federal campaign account from $0 and couldn’t bring his state campaign money with him, putting him in a near million dollar hole financially.
Bost is the slight favorite at this point, but a lot can happen in the next eight months.