MILWAUKEE — Illinois Republicans emphasized a message of unity behind former President Donald Trump as they gathered Monday for the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
The four-day gathering of Republicans from across the country comes after the assassination attempt on Trump Saturday in Pennsylvania.
“You saw a strong leader go down, stand up, with an attitude to fight, to bring back what this nation is,” U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of downstate Murphysboro said at an opening morning breakfast of Illinois GOP delegates.
U.S. Rep. Mike Bost speaks during Monday’s Illinois RNC delegation breakfast meeting at the Comfort Suites Milwaukee Airport.
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Illinois party officials said prayers for Trump, who arrived in Milwaukee Sunday night.
“We thank you (God) for sparring Donald Trump from the almost certain death on Saturday,” Demetra Demonte, the RNC committeewoman for Illinois, said in an opening prayer. “Surely you sent an angel to gently touch his face to move it so ever slightly to avoid the fatal shot from the assassin’s bullet.”
Trump delegates from Illinois — three from each of the state’s 17 congressional districts, 13 statewide delegates, and dozens of other at large and alternate delegates — packed a meeting room at the Comfort Suites Milwaukee Airport hotel in suburban Oak Creek.
It was part networking event, part pep rally for a state party operation that’s been decimated amid losses in statewide elections and intraparty squabbles.
Don Tracy, the outgoing state party chairman, was among those emphasizing unity Monday. Tracy, who cited party infighting in his resignation announcement in June, is being succeeded by Kathy Salvi of Mundelein.
“Welcome to Milwaukee,” Tracy told delegates. “Welcome to the greatest Republican convention in the history of mankind, and welcome more importantly to the beginning of the end of the Biden presidency.”
State Rep. John Cabello of Machesney Park, who ran against Salvi for party chair, said Illinois Republicans “must stand united from this point on.”
State Rep. John Cabello, a finalist for the chair of the Illinois GOP, speaks during Monday’s Illinois RNC delegation breakfast meeting at the Comfort Suites Milwaukee Airport hotel.
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“We have to stand together. We have to come together as a party and put all our differences aside, because we need to put our energy behind each other and push the Democrats back,” Cabello said.
Cabello, who was one of the earliest GOP pols in Illinois to back Trump in 2015, acknowledged Illinois is still blue. But there’s other ways local Republicans can make an impact at the RNC this week, he said.
“We are going to lose our voices throughout this week,” he said. “And we need to make sure we — Illinois — is heard on that convention floor. Because we can’t help as much as the other states. But darn it, we’re the best of the other states.”