Bailey Leads GOP: Good News For — And Brought To You By — Pritzkers

CHICAGO — Republicans really like state Sen. Darren Bailey for governor, according to a poll conducted by a news outlet funded by Gov. J.B. Pritzker's sister and brother-in-law's family foundation.

That's good news for — and brought to you by — the Pritzkers.

"Downstate farmer beating the crop out of GOP establishment in gov race," the clever Sun-Times/WBEZ headline read.

Most of the 677 likely Republican voters polled by Public Policy Polling, a North Carolina firm aligned with the Democratic Party, look upon Bailey more favorably than Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin and the other candidates for governor.

The Sun-Times/WBEZ poll results showed Bailey, a farmer, was more popular than Irvin in the suburbs, and statewide by an almost 2-1 margin.

Veteran political reporters who analyzed the data called it a "seismic shift" in the gubernatorial primary that suggests "Irvin's campaign may be losing steam at a crucial time."

And, if the polling is right, the reporters surmised that billionaire Ken Griffin's $50 million push to get Irvin elected over Pritzker is on the "verge of getting chewed up and spit out like wheat chaff by a Bible-quoting archconservative who has driven a combine for a living."

That poetic imagery even might have truth to it.

Public Policy Polling predictions are right about 79 percent of the time.

The Gov. Pritzker-funded Democratic Governors Association didn't hesitate to cheer the "game-changing" Pritzker-family funded news organization's poll results with vigor.

"Richard Irvin, Ken Griffin’s $50 million candidate, has woken up to find his campaign in free fall with just under three weeks until the primary election," Turner wrote in the group's latest string of news releases trolling the Illinois Republican primary — and Irvin's campaign, most of all.

Those snarky, name-calling emails aren't just entertaining. They're my regular reminder that Gov. Pritzker is quietly sinking millions of dollars into a political propaganda war that aims to steer likely Republican primary voters toward Bailey.

He's a Donald Trump supporter who called Chicago a "hellhole," vowed to "fix the problem" and will get crushed by city and Cook County Democratic voters, according to his public statements and common sense.

Now it seems Republicans are giving the governor exactly what he wants, which is so unlike them.

At least, according to the poll paid for by Pritzker's sister's news organization.

Illinois politics is so weird.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, wrote and produced the Peabody Award-winning series "Time: The Kalief Browder Story." He was a producer, writer and narrator for the "Chicagoland" docuseries on CNN and a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary "16 Shots.

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