Sources: Irvin Campaign in "Chaos" Amid New Poll Showing Him down 15 Points
Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, flanked by running mate Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) and Attorney General candidate Steve Kim at a rally in DuPage County last month.
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After we reported late Wednesday that Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin’s campaign was pulling its TV ads in downstate Illinois beginning next week, a picture of a campaign in “chaos” is beginning to emerge.
According to multiple sources with knowledge of the campaign infrastructure surrounding not only Irvin’s campaign, but the entire slate sponsored by billionaire Ken Griffin, vast uncertainty and viability questions persist for not only Irvin’s race, but contested primaries for Secretary of State and Attorney General.
We’re told Irvin’s running mate, Rep. Avery Bourne (R-Morrisonville) has expressed her frustration at the direction of the campaign and how she’s being presented in calls with fellow lawmakers in recent days. The Irvin campaign has pushed a new ad out in recent days featuring Bourne, but it isn’t clear yet if the ad has yet to air on television.
A new Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ poll released Friday showed Irvin trailing southern Illinois Senator Darren Bailey by 15 points:
In a potentially seismic shift in the Republican race for governor, downstate farmer Darren Bailey has seized a 15-percentage-point lead over Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin less than three weeks before the Illinois primary, a new Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ Poll has found.
The survey of 677 likely Republican primary voters taken Monday and Tuesday by Public Policy Polling showed the first-term senator from southern Illinois opening up a commanding lead over Irvin and their four other primary rivals, marking the first public poll to put Bailey ahead of the pack.
A total of 32% of respondents said they’d vote for Bailey if the primary were held this past week. Only 17% chose Irvin. And the downstate lawmaker was beating Irvin not only on his own rural and small-town turf but also in the vast stretch of Chicago suburbs, where the Aurora mayor had been expected to do well.
We’re told Bailey’s internal polling tracks with the Sun-Times/WBEZ poll.
Now it appears the rest of the Griffin slate is at risk of losing on June 28. Sources say polling indicates Rep. Dan Brady (R-Bloomington) has a “big” lead over former U.S. Attorney and Sangamon County State’s Attorney John Milhiser in their primary for Secretary of State. Though, we’re told there were a large number of undecided voters remaining in the latest survey and Milhiser is running television ads. Brady is expected to make a TV buy as early as next week. A Brady spokesman did not comment on polling.
We’re also told Griffin’s Attorney General candidate Steve Kim is struggling to pull ahead in his primary against southern Illinois attorney Tom DeVore, who built a following for his series of lawsuits against Governor JB Pritzker’s COVID-19 mitigations. Kim received $300,000 in funds through Irvin’s campaign fund in recent weeks, likely allowing him to get on television while DeVore has struggled to raise money.
If Irvin were to lose the primary, there remains an open question if Griffin would continue to support the rest of his slate, or if candidates like Rep. Tom Demmer (R-Dixon), who is running for State Treasurer, would be left to sink or swim on his own.
“This is a disaster,” said one longtime GOP insider. “They’re losing every race and the arrogance deciding who Republicans should vote for violates everything Republicans believe.”
The Irvin campaign did not respond to a request for comment, though, he told Mary Ann Ahern from NBC-5 in Chicago that the campaign isn’t winding down or ceding downstate, but to expect new messaging soon.
It’s really late in the game to completely retool your message, so we’ll have to see if it works or if Irvin’s campaign will go down in lore as one of the largest failures in state political history.
