Last week, a volunteer with Illinois GOP Rep. Rodney Davis’ campaign named Nick Klitzing pretended to be a college newspaper reporter in order to crash a press call with Democrat Betsy Dirksen Londrigan and ask her hostile questions—a stunt that has now raised difficult questions for Davis.
Davis’ team initially denied having any knowledge of Klitzing’s shenanigans, but Klitzing, who was deputy campaign manager for then-Gov. Bruce Rauner’s unsuccessful 2018 re-election campaign, admitted to WCIA reporter Mark Maxwell that he hadn’t acted on his own. Davis’ staff stopped responding when Maxwell inquired further.
Last week, Londrigan held a call with the progressive group End Citizens United and invited the local media to join. Klitzing phoned into the conference and identified himself as “Jim Sherman,” saying he was a reporter from The Alestle, the student paper at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. “Sherman” then proceeded to ask Davis questions about campaign finance issues that were meant to embarrass her.
It didn’t take long, however, for Klitzing’s story to fall apart. The Alestle’s editor told Maxwell that not only was the entire student staff away for the summer, but that there was, of course, no one named “Jim Sherman” who worked there. The university also said that no one by that name is currently enrolled as a pupil.
WCIA determined that Klitzing was the faux student by analyzing the conference call’s log and matching “Sherman’s” cell phone number with Klitzing’s. Klitzing quickly acknowledged what he’d done and added, “I was willing to help.” He also confessed that someone had asked him to crash the call and harass Londrigan, though he wouldn’t say who was behind the scheme.
Maxwell then asked Davis’ campaign manager, Matt Butcher, about the call. Butcher initially denied that he’d had any knowledge about what happened. However, the reporter gave Butcher 24 hours “to explain how an unpaid volunteer living in Chicago could have possibly been aware of a closed press call happening downstate, and how that volunteer might have known to parrot Congressman Davis’ talking points.” Butcher not only declined to say anything, but Davis’ staff quickly stopped responding to any communication from WCIA’s political reporters or even sending the station its standard press releases.
This isn’t the first time that someone with the Davis campaign has gotten hostile with Londrigan, who narrowly lost to the incumbent last year and is now back for a rematch. Back in August, Davis’ field director, Levi Lovell, showed up drunk at a bar where Londrigan was holding a fundraiser and was recorded harassing the candidate, her husband, and others.
When bartenders told Lovell to leave, he accused them of being “racist” because he was black. He later got into an altercation with someone outside the building. Lovell was charged with aggravated battery, and Butcher, who was also Davis’ manager for that campaign, said the campaign quickly fired him. Lovell later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge and was sentenced to a year of court supervision.
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