Dupage Policy Journal

Rep. Jeanne Ives (R- Wheaton) argues Gov. Bruce Rauner's plan of steering clear of her on the debate stage serves as a grave disservice to voters across the stage.

“Voters deserve to hear both candidates in a very public way,” Ives, who is challenging Rauner in next month’s Republican primary, told the DuPage Policy Journal.“They deserve to hear the differences in our policy choices and the way we go about making our decisions."

With just a over five-weeks remaining before March 20 primary, the two have yet to publicly articulate their views in the same forum, sans a recent Chicago Tribune editorial board meeting earlier this month, and Ives insists she knows why that might be.

“Gov. Rauner embarrassed himself with his lack of knowledge on the issues in that Tribune board meeting and he doesn’t want that to happen in public before the voters,” Ives said. “He knows there is no explaining away the way he has betrayed all the voters’ who turned out to support him in 2014 when he was still just a candidate.”

Ives recently took Rauner to task in a new “Ives: The Choice for Republican Voters In 2018” advertisement where she signaled to voters they finally “have a choice” after she said Rauner failed to stand with them after religiously vowing to do so.

In highlighting that Rauner was recently tabbed the “worse Republican governor in America” in a National Review poll, Ives has pledged to restore trust and faith in state government, matters she argues Rauner has never really concerned himself with.

“That just hasn’t been the Bruce Rauner way,” she said. “He may tell you differently, but if there is anything we’ve learned about him it is that he lie about things when the situation suits him.”

Ives has tapped former Rep. Rich Morthland as her running mate and Chicago GOP Chairman Chris Cleveland as her campaign chairman.