Where Illinois politics stand two months before the election

👋 Hi, it's Justin! We may be in the middle of the fall sports onslaught, but for many, the best game in town isn't football, baseball, basketball or soccer.

• It's politics.

So we're bringing back our Trail Mix political column every Monday until Nov. 8.

Shock and ads

We're less than two months until the election, which we know in our bones thanks to the sharp increase in political ads.

Driving the news: Dan Proft's super PAC has created a series of controversial ads about violence, including one showing a mugging taking place with a woman screaming.

• No music, no voiceover. Just screaming.
• The jarring ad ran last week during the Bears game, but was later spiked by NBC 5 after alleged complaints.
• Proft then asserted that the news ran the video first.

Fact check: Several news outlets did run the video as a news item, but with anchors reading copy over the muted video.

• And Profit's ad's intention is to get Chicagoans to vote for a candidate, not inform on something that happened in the community.

IL AG: Mask mandates

The race for attorney general, which represents the state in all legal matters, pits incumbent Democrat Kwame Raoul against downstate Republican lawyer Thomas DeVore.

Flashback: DeVore successfully sued the state to end the school mask mandate, with a judge ruling against the mandate last winter.

Zoom in: Before you label DeVore as an anti-mask hardliner, read his interesting comments at a GOP meeting in Springfield before a rally at the Illinois State Fair.

• "How many of you in this room don't like mask mandates?" [people raise hands]
• "Now, how many of you liked it when (Florida) Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced orders saying you can't enforce mask mandates?" [Audience claps and hoots]
• "You're what's wrong with this nation." [silence]
• "If Gov. DeSantis would have been the governor of Illinois, I would have sued him, too." [silence]
• "When you are OK with executive power being abused as long as it satisfies the ends that you're OK with, you have participated in the erosion of our great nation."

The bottom line: You rarely see candidates telling their fellow party members they're wrong, especially at public meetings.

• It's refreshing.