District 55 Republican State House candidate Dan Gott, who lost his bid to replace incumbent state Rep. Marty Moylan (D-Des Plaines), said he feels voters were “sucker punched” by career politicians during this election and -- despite his loss -- he plans to continue his crusade against political corruption in Illinois.
Gott won 17,259 votes among the district’s 70 precincts, giving him 41 percentage points while Moylan received 59 percent of the vote.
“Career politicians have held office for too long and our state is marked with corruption and cronyism,” Gott told the North Cook News after Tuesday’s election. “I truly believe the people in my district made their choice based on misinformation. We have been lied to for so long that we are sometimes brainwashed.”
While on the campaign trail, Gott heard many citizens express frustration with the status quo.
“While campaigning, I talked with thousands of people about their quality of life and the future of our children, but what really stood out to me was the number of people that had little regard for my opponent," Gott said. "Cronyism is what it's all about. Illinois is one big bedroom community and we are still asleep. We don’t realize what is coming. I feel like we got sucker punched by career politicians.”
A retired engineer, Gott is a newcomer to the political arena having worked for over 25 years in the medical instrumentation and computer technology field. He focused much of his campaign on being a political outsider who would bring change to the Illinois State House. Gott consistently tied Moylan to House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and to what Gott called the supermajority that needed to be cleaned out.
Gott’s pairing of Moylan and Madigan together became even more vocal just weeks before the election, when Gott joined several other Republican candidates to sign a “No Madigan” pledge. The pledge stated that if the candidates were elected to the State House, they would not vote to re-elect Madigan as speaker.
“I made a hard effort to try and change our state around. I support everything I said and did throughout my campaign,” Gott said.
Gott called out Moylan early in the campaign, alleging Madigan was conducting a “smear campaign” against him by creating political fliers and brochures that contained misstatements regarding Gott’s positions on issues such as Second Amendment rights and family values.
In September, Gott’s message of overturning business as usual in Springfield helped him win the endorsement of the Illinois Family-Pac. The group said they supported Gott for his “common sense conservative values” which they had hoped would shake up things in Springfield.
“I am branded, people like me, and they know I am a man with good character,” Gott said. “I stepped up at the last minute to run and said ‘I will take it on’ and so I did. It was not easy.”
Despite the loss, Gott said he will remain active in politics.
“I look forward to still becoming involved as a crusader and informing people about the true state of the Illinois economy and what individuals and families can expect in the future as well as what we need to do going forward,” Gott said.
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