After two weeks of having the central and northwestern Illinois airwaves to himself, Democratic Rep. Eric Sorensen, D-Moline, has some competition for his district’s eyes and ears.
Retired Judge Joe McGraw, Sorensen’s Republican challenger in Illinois’ 17th Congressional District, launched his first television ad of the general campaign on Wednesday, honing in on the issue of crime while casting himself as the law-and-order candidate in the race. […]
McGraw’s ad, which will appear on television and digital platforms in the Rockford, Quad Cities and Peoria/Bloomington-Normal media markets, starts by featuring pictures of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a voiceover stating that “Washington politicians coddle criminals and blame victims.”
The ad then alleges that “it’s why crime is soaring in Illinois” while criminals are “released on cashless bail,” the latter a reference to the Pretrial Fairness Act, a provision in the larger SAFE-T Act that eliminated cash bail in Illinois. The 2021 law was championed by Democrats while universally opposed by Republicans.
Recent data compiled by Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Criminal Justice Research, however, showed that violent and property crime in Illinois decreased year-over-year from the first six months of 2023 to the first six months of 2024. Cash bail was eliminated in Illinois on Sept. 18, 2023.
