Illi­nois Rep. Mike Bost sur­vives chal­lenge from Gaetz-backed chal­lenger

Rep. Mike Bost (R‑IL) sur­vived an intra­party pri­ma­ry chal­lenge from Repub­li­can state Sen. Dar­ren Bai­ley dur­ing Tuesday’s Illi­nois 12th Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict GOP pri­ma­ry.
Bai­ley was backed by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL), who feud­ed with Bost dur­ing last year’s ouster of for­mer House Speak­er Kevin McCarthy. Bost had the back­ing of for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.
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The Asso­ci­at­ed Press called the race for Bost at 10:14 a.m. East­ern time on Wednes­day, a day after vot­ers in Illi­nois cast their votes. Bost had 51% of the vote to Bailey’s 49%.
Bost and Gaetz’s com­pli­cat­ed rela­tion­ship stems back to McCarthy’s ouster from the speak­er­ship last year.
Bost famous­ly screamed at the Flori­da con­gress­man as he was speak­ing on the House floor in Jan­u­ary 2023 while he and sev­er­al Repub­li­cans held back sup­port for McCarthy’s speak­er­ship.
The Illi­nois con­gress­man alleged­ly lunged at Gaetz dur­ing a closed-door hear­ing last Octo­ber after McCarthy ha …