* I pointed out to subscribers several days ago that Dan Proft’s campaign committees hadn’t raised any money this year after spending a fortune battling House Republicans in past primary cycles. The House Republicans have been saying they don’t believe Proft will be getting any more bigtime cash from Dick Uihlein and that they’ve made peace with some key Proft allies. I’ve reached out to Proft for comment a couple of times this week and haven’t heard back.

Hannah Meisel advanced the story today…

[Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider] said he’s trying to nix any Republican infighting before it has the chance to bloom in the 2020 campaign cycle. He told The Daily Line that he’s been working with the free-market think tank Illinois Policy Institute, whose CEO John Tillman was an early supporter of Rauner, and who has previously been in the background of efforts to field candidates against mainstream Republicans.

Schneider said he also planned to work with Ideas Illinois, a not-for-profit dark money organization created by longtime business leader Greg Baise to fight Pritzker’s signature policy: a progressive income tax that voters will have to weigh in on in the November 2020 election.

“We’re all working together, that’s the whole thing,” Schneider said. “You know, we’ve been fighting each other for so long, nobody’s done enough to try to get everybody to work together. And I think if there’s one thing that we’re doing that we haven’t done effectively, the last couple years we’ve been fighting each other.”

Schneider said because of his efforts, Republicans would face fewer primary battles — even from candidates launched by conservative radio host and one-time gubernatorial candidate Dan Proft, and conservative business magnate Richard Uihlein.

“In the past, resources have come from the Policy Institute and Dick Uihlein,” Schneider said. “And I don’t see that they’ve engaged in giving resources to Dan Proft in the last two quarterly statements, so I think there’s a pullback from that. I think they’d rather see us all working together than working against one another…if people are gonna constantly fight one another for radio ratings, no, we’re not interested in that.”

…Adding… Good point by Maxwell…

*** UPDATE *** I asked Matt Paprocki at the Illinois Policy Institute for comment on Chairman Schneider’s claim that his group was one of the “partners” on the state GOP’s team…

Illinois Policy Institute has no role with the Illinois GOP team.

But I hope everyone — Republicans, Democrats and Independents — says we are good partners.

We want to work to everyone. Our state’s biggest problems are not partisan. And the solutions to fix them have to be bipartisan, as well.

Illinois Policy Institute is nonpartisan, which means our policy work is open to all, and we will partner with anyone.