Day 21: Rauner’s Outreach to Ives Was One Text Message, and He Lied About It

At a press conference yesterday, Governor Bruce Rauner was absolutely besieged by reporters’ questions about his efforts to patch relations up state Representative Jeanne Ives. Rauner claimed his campaign “called” Ives’ “office right after the primary”, and that they “were told…that she did not have an interest in speaking with me.” As embarrassing as this admission is for a sitting Governor, it also happened not to be true.
Capitol Fax reported yesterday that the full extent of Rauner’s outreach to Ives was an unanswered text message from one staffer to another. As a reminder, 341,836 Republicans voted for Ives – 48% of the Republican primary vote.
“What’s worse?” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “The fact that Bruce Rauner’s outreach to Jeanne Ives and the 48% of Republican voters that supported her was a single text message… or the fact that Rauner lied about it?”