New third party candidate could be a headache for Rauner in IL-GOV
Things were already looking tricky for Bruce Rauner, the Illinois Republican governor who barely avoided losing his March 20 primary to conservative challenger Jeanne Ives.
But this news isn't going to make life any easier for Rauner in his attempts to ward off Democratic candidate (and billionaire) J.B. Pritzker: there could be a third candidate in the race, who says he'll run as a Conservative Party candidate.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Sen. Sam McCann of Plainview announced he’ll run under a new Conservative Party label and criticized Rauner in a video for helping Chicago Democrats control the state.In a statement, McCann said “the Republican Party under Rauner was unrecognizable to me.”(snip)But it could be difficult for McCann to get his name onto the November ballot. He needs the valid signatures of 25,000 voters who did not already sign or circulate candidacy petitions for the March primary. Normally, candidates file twice the number of signatures just to be safe.
In a statement, the Rauner campaign called McCann "the worst kind of political opportunist."
"McCann’s unethical record speaks for itself: he failed to pay his taxes, racked up massive debts, lied about serving in the Marine Corps, and used his campaign account as a personal piggy bank, even buying himself an SUV," said Rauner communications director Will Allison. “Public service should not be for personal gain and Sam McCann's new ‘campaign’ is just a thinly veiled attempt to profit off of politics."
