The chairman of the Illinois Republican Party has resigned just weeks ahead of the Republican National Convention due to intra-party fighting.
Chairman Don Tracy announced his resignation Wednesday in a shake-up to the party leadership just four weeks ahead of the Republican National Convention in neighboring Wisconsin. He pointed to intra-party fighting as the reason for his resignation.
“When I took on this full-time volunteer job in February, 2021, I thought I would be spending most of my time fighting Democrats, helping elect Republicans, raising money to pay for more Party infrastructure, and advocating for Party unity. Unfortunately, however, I have had to spend far too much time dealing with intra party power struggles, and local intra party animosities that continued after primaries and County Chair elections,” Tracy wrote in his resignation letter.
“In better days, Illinois Republicans came together after tough intraparty elections,” Tracy continued. “Now however, we have Republicans who would rather fight other Republicans than engage in the harder work of defeating incumbent Democrats by convincing swing voters to vote Republican.”
Tracy noted that his resignation was effective upon a new chairman being elected into the role by “no later than July 19,” one day after the conclusion of the RNC in Milwaukee. A three-member committee has been set up to find Tracy’s replacement.
The news comes as Illinois Republicans rejected Mark Shaw, Tracy’s vice chairman, at the state’s GOP convention last month. There, Shaw acquired an unauthorized delegate badge, which allowed him to vote for himself to become the new Republican National Committeeman. Still, he was twice rejected by an overwhelming number of delegates at the convention, leading to Shaw’s ultimately dropping out of the race.
Tracy said he was uncomfortable with the way things transpired at the convention.
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“Recent events, including the RNC Committeeman election, immediately followed by the retribution sacking of the losing candidate Vice Chair Mark Shaw, a longtime State Party leader and worker, without due process and without taking any step disciplining others for alleged or admitted Convention misconduct, portends a direction of the state party I am not comfortable with,” Tracy wrote.
Democrats currently dominate all levels of the Illinois state legislature and it is unlikely the Republican Party will make significant ground there in the 2024 election cycle.
