Day 111: Ives Still Has Not Endorsed Rauner, Continues Attacking His Failed Leadership

Today marks 111 days since the primary, and in that time Governor Bruce Rauner still has not earned the endorsement of his primary rival, state Representative Jeanne Ives. Rauner only defeated Ives by 3 points and is in desperate need of her full-throated support, but just two weeks ago, Ives reiterated her non-endorsement by saying “No. I’m not going to endorse the governor. I’m going to let him buy back his voters.’”
But Ives has not been silent since the primary. She backed a challenge to Rauner’s hand-picked party chairman and continued blasting the Governor’s failed leadership in office:

• Ives: “He’s unelectable in 2018. He has destroyed the Republican Party brand. … He’s a lame-duck governor at this point.”
• Ives: “It’s pretty obvious he can’t tell the truth, even on small things.”
• Ives: “But you don’t blame shift when you have 13 deaths and then you fail to actually move those veterans out of an unsafe condition. Nobody should be blaming that on anyone other than the Rauner administration.”
• Ives: “He owes an apology to Illinois Republican voters.”
• Ives asked if she’ll “say it is okay to vote Rauner” in a close election – “I cannot predict what the future is going to look like in a few months. So, we just see what is going on.”
• Ives: “They are trying to pretend like there is a unified party and the truth is that they have dismissed the conservative voters who came out in droves to vote for me in the primary.”

“Jeanne Ives could not make it clearer – Bruce Rauner is a failed governor who refuses to take responsibility for his failed leadership,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “Rauner has been unable to win back Ives and her supporters because voters of any party know that Illinois is worse off after Bruce Rauner’s years of failure.”

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