GOP War of Words Spices Up Final Days of Gubernatorial Primary
Former Sen. and gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey, gubernatorial candidate Ted Dabrowski, and radio host and political consultant Dan Proft.
All indications are that former State Senator Darren Bailey, the 2022 GOP nominee for Governor is the clear favorite to win the GOP nomination again next week.
But a war of words has broken out over Bailey’s electability and appeal from a top contender and a radio host and political consultant who once supported Bailey and now rakes in cash advising for top rival.
GOP gubernatorial candidate Ted Dabrowski, the former Illinois Policy Institute staffer who most recently operated the Wirepoints conservative advocacy website, took aim at Bailey on our podcast last week claiming the former Senator can’t win a general election against Governor JB Pritzker.
“If you want to beat Pritzker, then you gotta vote for somebody who’s electable,” Dabrowski said. “If you think about it, to beat Pritzker, you’ve got to build a coalition. And that coalition has got to be a new type of coalition. It can’t be a Republican coalition only, it’s got to attract people who are disenfranchised, who are sick of the Democrats or sick of Brandon Johnson, sick of Pritzker, maybe voted for Pritzker twice, but say, ‘hey, the guy’s extreme,’ or ‘he hasn’t cut taxes’ to come to our side.”
Enter Chicago radio host Dan Proft, a former candidate for Governor in 2010 (finishing 6th out of 6), and political consultant who has been embroiled in a number of controversies in the past decade, who is currently a $25,000 per month consultant for Dabrowski’s campaign.
Proft has a long history with Bailey, supporting his initial 2018 campaign for the Illinois House with a PAC funded in large part by Lake Forest megadonor Richard Uihlein.
Through a separate PAC, Proft spent big bucks (provided by Uihlein) backing Bailey in the 2022 primary, then attempted to hold Uihlein’s dollars hostage in an attempt to take over Bailey’s fledgling general election campaign that fall. It was later alleged Proft offered Bailey $20 million in contributions to take over the campaign.
Proft’s “People Who Play By The Rules PAC” spent millions of Uihlein’s dollars to boost Bailey and attack Pritzker in the fall of 2022, but didn’t make a significant dent in the final outcome as Bailey lost to Pritzker by around 13 percentage points.
Now Proft, who lives in Florida, is on Dabrowski’s payroll, and the knives are out in the final week of the campaign.
“He was a tone deaf gaffe machine who was unwilling to learn,” Proft said in a clip posted from his radio show, where he does not disclose in the clip he’s being paid by Dabrowski. “This time around, [Bailey] has none of the attributes he had last time, donor and grassroots support, but retains all of the deficiencies that are directly attributable to him. He is solely living off of [residual] awareness from four years ago.”
Proft continued to say Bailey’s supporters came from two camps, “those who lack intellectual curiosity,” or, he continued with an attack on Bailey supporters insinuating they are dumb.
Bailey shot back in a Twitter post over the weekend.
“I’ll take the farmers, workers, and families of Illinois over the Chicago political elites every single day,” Bailey’s account wrote. “We’re not backing down.”
Proft continued to double down on his attacks online.
“Darren Bailey’s Southern Illinois jingoism is a sham,” he wrote on Twitter. “To state the truth about his dismal past performance and paucity of political ability is to cast aspersions against the good people of Southern Illinois. Is the Bailey voter in Cook County distinguishable from the Bailey voter in Crawford County? No. They’re both clueless.”
The saga has left many Republicans shaking their heads in frustration.
“For Dan Proft to be calling Darren Bailey’s voters stupid and hillbillies is really not a winning strategy,” former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Pat Brady said.
“Darren is far from a good statewide candidate, but Dan Proft is also responsible for the 2022 beating,” said one GOP strategist, who is not affiliated with any of the gubernatorial campaigns. “The only thing Dan Proft is good at nowadays is ripping off candidates and billionaires from Florida.”
Even the Pritzker campaign is watching Proft, who often refers to the Governor as “jelly belly,” do what was described by one observer as “melt down” in the final days of the campaign.
“Dan Proft is a grifter who hasn’t won a meaningful race in his life,” said a source close to the Pritzker campaign. “Until Republicans in this state recognize that fact, they will continue to lose and remain irrelevant.”
Others say Dabrowski has no one to blame but himself for his struggles in the polls.
“Dabrowski had a clear path to the nomination. Then he decided to wait to officially get in the race. Bailey simply filled the void while everyone was wondering if Dabrowski was actually going to pull the trigger, said former Rep. Mark Batinick. “I believe that indecision is what will ultimately cost him the nomination.”
“It’s funny Ted makes the electability argument in the general election, because he’s been a miserable candidate,” said Brady. “He’s been a complete bust of a candidate in the primary, so I don’t know how that translates to how he would be better [in November.]”
Others are sharing their frustration that Bailey is getting in the mud with Proft and Dabrowski when it appears he has the nomination in hand.
“I want to believe Bailey has changed, especially since he will be the Republican nominee, said another GOP operative. “But he keeps showing signs that he’s still the same Darren Bailey. Which means we’re screwed in November.”
