THE ILLINOIZE: More social media problems for Team Bailey...Casino revenue skyrockets, but still lower than normal...Kinzinger: GOP is like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"...Yang Rohr opponent
***SOME TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES THIS MORNING, WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE DELAY***
August 16, 2022
Good morning, Illinois.
First, a quick programming note. I’m traveling next week for the “day job,” and I’m dying to play a round or two of golf, so we’re going to take the week off from newsletter activities. We’ll be back and better than ever on August 29.
The Governor’s Sale of Champions is tonight at 5. It’s typically one of the highlights of the Fair and for the kids that compete there in livestock shows. (Yes, livestock shows are competition, come hang out on a farm with me sometime.)
First Lady MK Pritzker set a record last year paying $105,000 for the Grand Champion Steer. Do they fork out $250k in an election year?
The Governor will also promote pet adoption at an event at the Animal Protective League in Springfield at 1:30. The Bailey campaign has not released a public schedule.
The cat is out of the bag that instead of the traditional Governor’s Day rally tomorrow at the Fair, the Pritzker campaign is bringing in country star Chris Young to play a free concert for fairgoers. The Pritzker campaign would not confirm this, but word is they’re paying $300,000 to bring Young to the Fair. But, that would almost have completely wiped out the checking account of the Bailey campaign after the primary campaign. Just one more of those little slaps in the face by the billionaire campaign.
We’ll host another of our Livestream and podcast shows tomorrow at noon on our YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter pages. We’ll talk guns, abortion, inflation, and Darren Bailey’s suburban struggles with Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield). We’ll answer your questions and read your comments at the end of the show, so drop us a note at mailbag@theillinoize.com.
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Let’s get to it.
MORE DRIP, DRIP, DRIP FOR BAILEY CAMPAIGN
After GOP gubernatorial nominee Sen. Darren Bailey (R-Xenia) was caught comparing the Holocaust to abortion, he walked it back and doubled down on the comment in the span of a few days. It started a drip of statements and social media posts that knocked him off message and kept him reeling from the attacks of Chicago Democrats.
Now, Democrats have their eyes on Bailey’s running mate Stephanie Trussell. Via my friend Tahman Bradley of WGN-TV):
But Bailey is not alone in using social media to share his cultural views. His running mate, Lt. Governor candidate Stephanie Trussell, also posts on Facebook and Twitter.
“Stick your finger in the lock and your DNA will open the appropriate door,” she tweeted in 2017. “We are not interchangeable. Do you think ‘Bruce,’ referring to Kaitlyn Jenner, has true joy?”
Trussell has used Facebook posts to mock Planned Parenthood.
“President Obama became the first sitting president ever to address Klanned Parenthood,” she posted.
Just say no! The LGBTQXYZ agenda is aggressively trying to repurpose classic stories and films. How can a godmother be genderless? Satan is a liar!” Trussell posted in 2020 about actor Billy Porter playing a genderless fairy godmother.
Trussell is sharply critical of politicians that back the “gay agenda.”
“Since Bill Clinton was called the first black president can we call Barack Obama the first gay president?” she tweeted in 2015.
“Crime is skyrocketing and jobs and families are fleeing under JB Pritzker’s watch. But his campaign and the media are making a big election about old social media posts. Darren Bailey and I are focused on making Illinois safer and more affordable for every Illinoisan,” Trussell said in a statement to WGN News.
They just don’t learn.
Did the Bailey staff not know how to purge a social media feed?
“It’s almost like they’re trying to lose by more than ten points,” a GOP operative told me last night.
Don’t they know people would be looking for this stuff? It leads me to think they either made the completely amateur mistake not to clean up the accounts or didn’t think the statements would be a political football. Or, potentially worse, the candidates stood by all of these statements when highlighted by staff and refused to have the oppo cleaned up. Either way, that’s campaign malpractice.
CASINO REVENUE GETTING BACK TO NORMAL?
New numbers from the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (COGFA) show casino revenue is “skyrocketing,” but still not quite pre-pandemic levels.
Casinos brought in around $900 million in revenue during FY21 (July 1, 2020-June 30, 2021) and around $1.3 billion in FY22 (July 1, 2021-June 30, 2022). But, those numbers are still below revenue numbers prior to the pandemic.
Governor JB Pritzker closed casinos at the height of the pandemic, between March 16 and June 30, 2020. Numerous other restrictions, including capacity limits and mask requirements, remained for months. Casinos produced around $1.4 billion in FY19, prior to the pandemic.
The FY22 number also includes the new Hard Rock Casino in Rockford, which opened its temporary facility in November. It produced $34 million in revenue in its first 8 months in operation.
Bally’s has put in its first application for a site in the city of Chicago. Obviously, there are a million hoops to jump through even to open a temporary site, but casino revenue could be ticking up even higher in the next couple of years.
Casino revenue probably shouldn’t be considered a savior for state coffers, though, as revenue has been trending downward in recent years. It was over $1.6 billion in FY2012, and declined each year between 2013 and 2021, according to COGFA. That’s part of why you’ve seen casinos make such a push for sports betting in recent years. Rivers Casino in Des Plaines is the only casino in the state that has seen its revenue actually increase over the past decade.
Casinos are taxed 15% on table games (blackjack, poker, etc.) up to $25 million and 20% above that. There is also an admissions tax and a tax on other games, like slots, that ranges from 15%-50%.
KINZINGER ON STATE OF GOP: ‘INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS’
Outgoing Republican pariah Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Channahon) sat down for a really great interview with Ben Bradley from WGN-TV the other day.
“He won.”
Those two words are not the sound of surrender, but a reflection of Rep. Adam Kinzinger’s current reality. The first chapters in the Kinzinger vs. Trump feud are written and they end with the congressman preparing to leave Washington, D.C. at the end of this term and the former president under siege but not out of the arena.
“Yeah, he won in the short term at least,” Kinzinger said. “There’s no use in pretending somehow I scored some major victory and saved the party.”
I spoke to Kinzinger last week when I filled in on WMAY in Springfield. You can hear that conversation here.
YANG ROHR GETS OPPONENT
After Republican Jennifer Bruzan Taylor dropped out of her race with Rep. Janet Yang Rohr (D-Naperville) last week, Republicans moved quickly to find a replacement with under 85 days to go before the election.
We’re told Naperville Park Board member Rich Janor will be appointed the the ballot position. He’s a former Park Board Chairman, owns a small business in Naperville, and is the Head Baseball Coach at Montini Catholic High School in Lombard.
The question remains if Republicans will have any money to help Janor run a credible campaign. Yang Rohr is one of a handful of Democrats already up on TV to try to quash any potential (or actual) opposition.
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