Speaker Mike Johnson has been stumping for Republican candidates around the country, most of whom are proud recipients of an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. But Joe McGraw, a moderate retired judge from central Illinois who Johnson is eager to see come to Congress, isn’t interested in Trump’s stamp of approval.
At a private home in Peoria earlier this month, Johnson appeared alongside GOP Reps. Jim Jordan, Darin LaHood and Carol Miller. Johnson delivered a stump speech for a couple hundred guests, all there to support McGraw, who’s running to unseat freshman Democrat Eric Sorensen.
But unlike Johnson, LaHood, Jordan and Miller, McGraw has never been endorsed by or endorsed Trump. In an interview with local TV host Jim Niedelman in July, McGraw said he’s “never considered [himself] a Donald Trump Republican, or a Mitt Romney Republican, or any other kind of Republican.”