Republican candidate for governor Darren Bailey on Monday named Stephanie Trussell, a former right-wing radio talk show host in Chicago, as his running mate for the June 28 primary.
Bailey became the first of four announced GOP candidates to pick a lieutenant governor contender. Under state law, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor must run as a team. Team Bailey links a white farmer and state senator from rural downstate Xenia with a Black suburban woman.
Trussell grew up on Chicago’s West Side and now lives in Lisle. She formerly worked as a talk-show host for WLS AM-890 for seven years after winning a station talent contest, and had been doing fill-in work for WIND AM-560.
In her social media posts in 2016, Trussell was opposed to Donald Trump’s Republican presidential nomination. She used the #NeverTrump hashtag on her Twitter account as she wrote Trump “is a despicable human being,” saying he “will donate to #Satan for a land deal” and that her “skin crawls when pundits call #Trump the leader of the #GOP. He doesn’t represent my values.”
Darren Bailey, a state representative and gubernatorial candidate, at Republican Day at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield on Aug. 19, 2021. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
But after the election, Trussell became a Trump supporter and backed his reelection in 2020. After Trump’s loss, she tweeted to fellow “Trumpers” to “Tell your future generations the truth about the greatest POTUS of our time.”
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Trussell also has used her social media platform to liken Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan and question the validity of health care professionals calling for vaccinations to deal with the pandemic.
In introducing Trussell to supporters at a Lisle restaurant, Bailey said Trussell was “a hard working conservative” and “a fighter.”
“We’re tired of extreme liberal policies being pushed in Springfield while weak-kneed Republicans are too afraid to stand up and deliver a simple conservative message,” Bailey said.
“We need bold and courageous leaders who will stand up for the working people and taxpayers, leaders who will fight for economic prosperity and economic opportunities, our freedoms and support law enforcement to help provide safer communities for every Illinoisan,” he said. “Leaders focused on getting the masks off our kids and the policies out of our classrooms.”
Trussell said that while she loved Illinois, “its political leaders and political class have failed us.” She vowed that she and Bailey would deliver a tax cut to Illinoisans after their second year in office.
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“Our work for the people of Illinois is just beginning. While we love this great state we all know Springfield is broken. It’s so self evidently true that it’s almost not worth arguing the details,” she said. “We need to get the woke left political agenda out of our classrooms for once and for all. It’s time to teach our kids to chase their dreams, not to be a victim or hate one another.”
Abby Witt, executive director of the Illinois Democratic Party, said the selection of Trussell was “in line with what we’d expect from this anti-choice, anti-science field of extremist, far-right candidates” for governor.
The other Republican candidates seeking to take on first-term Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker are businessmen Gary Rabine of Bull Valley, Jessie Sullivan of Petersburg and former state Sen. Paul Schimpf of Waterloo.
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