Facing a Tough Re-elect, Davis Talks Out of Both Sides of His Mouth
Will the Real Rodney Davis Please Stand Up?
Congressman Rodney Davis, who “faces an even tougher landscape” than his “narrow” win in 2018, knows he must appeal to more voters in Illinois’ 13th District. That’s why he’s trying to have it both ways on the issues facing his district, including his support for the president. While Davis currently serves as the Co-Chair of President Trump’s reelection in Illinois, last week he incredibly refused to tell two local news outlets who he plans to vote for in the presidential election.
Yet, spectacularly, he plans to address the Republican National Convention just before Trump accepts his party’s re-nomination.
“Talk about the epitome of election year political pandering from Congressman Rodney Davis: despite serving as Co-Chair of President Trump’s re-election campaign in Illinois, Davis refuses to say whom he’s voting for,” said DCCC Spokesperson Courtney Rice. “Sadly, this is typical for Davis – he voted to deny coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and then claims the opposite when the cameras are on. Voters in Central Illinois won’t be fooled by slick talk from politicians like Rodney Davis. They expect the truth.”
In a year of interesting political twists, here’s another one: U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, is an honorary co-chair of President Donald Trump’s campaign, but won’t say if he’ll vote to re-elect the president.
“I clearly chair the president’s campaign, but I’ve learned a valuable lesson from 2016,” Davis said on a recent edition of “The 21st,” an Illinois Public Media show hosted by Brian Mackey. “Unless you tell me who you’re going to vote for up and down the ballot, I’m going to exercise the same right you and every other American has to cast my vote in the privacy of the ballot box.”
What?
The history is that a day after it was revealed in October 2016 that an “Access Hollywood” show microphone years earlier caught Trump saying he could kiss and grab women because he was famous, Davis rescinded support for Trump. He said he couldn’t vote for any candidate for president that November, and hoped Trump would drop out so Mike Pence could get elected.
“The abhorrent comments made by Donald Trump are inexcusable,” he said at the time.
But when asked in July 2018, during a visit to Roland Machinery in Springfield, if he had kept to what he said and didn’t vote for Trump, he wouldn’t say.
“There’s one thing I’ve learned in this business,” he said at the time. “I will never tell anybody who I voted for.”
He said then that he thought the president was working hard to move the country in the right direction.
He continues to say the people elected Trump, so he will work with him.
His position about not revealing his coming vote for president hadn’t changed as of Friday, spokesman Aaron DeGroot said.
Davis now, as in 2016, is the incumbent running against Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan of Springfield in the 13th Congressional District.
Londrigan, in a statement when I asked last week, didn’t waffle on her choice.
“America needs leaders who will fight to protect and expand the Affordable Care Act and ensure access to quality, affordable health care,” she said. “That’s what I’ll fight for in Congress and it’s why I am proud to be voting for (former) Vice President (Joe) Biden and Senator Kamala Harris and look forward to working with them to bring our country together.”
###