Gov. Bruce Rauner praised President Donald Trump’s economic and trade policies at an agricultural candidate forum Wednesday and said they should be replicated in Illinois.

 

But Democratic contender J.B. Pritzker, appearing later, chastised Rauner for not utilizing the state’s congressional leadership to get more aid from Washington and not standing up against Trump tariffs impacting the agriculture industry.

 

The two men spoke at a forum hosted by the Illinois Farm Bureau at a family farm in Normal. Like the political days at the state fair, the quadrennial forums provide candidates a chance to make their pitches to a rural Downstate audience.

 

For Rauner, that meant a continued attempt to play regional politics in assailing his chief political nemesis, Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, and the “Chicago Machine.” He accused Madigan of being “loyal to Chicago rather than to central Illinois or Southern Illinois.”

 

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