Dupage Policy Journal

A GOP Townhall event is in the works for DuPage County in June.

“Coming June 2023 with date to be announced,” Illinois GOP Grassroots Task Force said on Facebook.

The town hall will be held to hear the public's concerns with a question and answer session.

"We want to hear what you have to say or listen to any of your concerns,” the post further reads. “Together we will build the necessary bridges to develop an effective strategy to rebuild and rebrand the party through this Task Force to win elections!”

The Illinois GOP Grassroots Task Force discusses local notable Republicans on its Facebook page.

"I ask you to give us this opportunity so that we can be joined together as a family of conservatives to protect our family values and the economic future and safety of the residents of this state," Co-Chair of the Illinois GOP Task Force, Larry Smith said.

The state GOP has been criticized for not adequately representing conservative voters. The Illinois Review released a bombshell report on Illinois GOP chairman Don Tracy right before the April 4 elections. The state GOP was largely inactive during the April elections.

“Tracy and the Republican Party of Illinois are an embarrassment to every Republican in Illinois and they are guilty of political malpractice for abandoning candidates in the upcoming school board elections,” the Illinois Review wrote. “It’s no wonder why Republicans always lose in Illinois – and like Tracy, some are actually Democrats pretending to be Republicans.”

In the report, Illinois Review revealed Tracy’s Democrat background. In 2002, Tracy ran as a Democrat for the 50th State Senate District.

“I thought I could be more independent as a Democrat in a county where the Democrat Party was weak,” Tracy told The State Journal-Register’s Bernard Schoenburg.

Tracy has also provided campaign donations to Democrats in recent cycles. Dot Foods, owned by the Tracy family, donated to President Joe Biden. In 2020, Tracy donated personally to Democrat Judge Emily Sutton in her run for Circuit Court Judge in the 9th Judicial Circuit of Illinois.

In early 2023, former House minority leader Jim Durkin turned on Republicans in his last days in office by voting for a sweeping gun ban. Before becoming the only Republican to vote for the measure, Durkin, formerly the party’s leader in the House and arguably the highest-ranking GOP leader in the state, oversaw a disastrous election campaign in 2022 spending big on campaign in-fighting that depleted GOP accounts before to the general election.