Update: On Saturday, Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider released a statement calling on state Rep. Jeanne Ives to take down the ad. 
 
 "There is no place in the Illinois Republican Party for rhetoric that attacks our fellow Illinoisans based on their race, gender or humanity. Rep. Ives' campaign ad does not reflect who we are as the Party of Lincoln and as proud residents of our great and diverse state," said Schneider, an ally of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who Ives is challenging in the March 20 primary. 
 
 "She should pull down the ad and immediately apologize to the Illinoisans who were negatively portrayed in a cowardly attempt to stoke political division," added Schneider, a Cook County commissioner. 
 
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 Republican primary challenger Jeanne Ives is mounting a full-bore attack on Gov. Bruce Rauner’s conservative credentials, launching a TV ad featuring an actor portraying a transgender woman thanking the governor for signing a law expanding trans rights. 
 
 The “Thank you, Bruce Rauner” ad, scheduled to start airing Saturday, also depicts a young woman wearing a pink protest hat thanking the governor for making Illinois families “pay for my abortions.” And it has a hoodie-wearing man with his face partially hidden by a bandana thanking Rauner for making Illinois “a sanctuary state for illegal immigrant criminals.” 
 
 The ad was quickly deemed offensive by groups supporting transgender, abortion and immigration rights in Illinois. The spot also illustrated the hard-edged social ideology that Ives frequently has displayed in representing her Wheaton district in the General Assembly. The three-term lawmaker is now attempting to bring that approach statewide in a traditionally Democratic-leaning state. 
 
 “It is sad that a candidate for the office of governor of Illinois would seek to divide voters by attacking our neighbors, friends and colleagues who are newcomers and refugees, those of a different race, those who are transgender and poor women in need of health care,” ACLU Executive Director Colleen Connell said in a statement. 
 
 Anticipating questions and criticism, the Ives campaign put out a statement when it sent out the commercial. 
 
 “The ad represents Gov. Rauner's chosen constituents based on the policy choices he made,” Ives’ campaign said. 
 
 “Those Republican primary voters who don't know of Rauner's betrayals of conservatives need to know. Now they will,” the campaign said. 
 
 Ives’ camp also contended the ad represents a “fair and accurate representation of the implications” of Rauner’s policy choices. But the ad exaggerates the effects — and misstates the facts — about laws Rauner signed. 
 
 Take the ad’s most highly charged accusation. A deep-voiced actor wearing a dress says, “Thank you for signing legislation that lets me use the girls bathroom.” 
 
 The law Rauner signed did not address the use of bathrooms. Rauner signed legislation in August allowing transgender people to change the gender on their birth certificates with authorization from a medical professional confirming treatment. Previously, the law required proof of a surgical operation. 
 
 Brian C. Johnson, the CEO of Equality Illinois, the state's LGBTQ civil rights organization, said the group had hoped for “a higher level of discourse” from someone running for governor. 
 
 “At a time when our leaders should be bringing Illinoisans together, Jeanne Ives is launching a campaign of division and rancor. We need a governor who will stand up for all Illinoisans, not someone who will target transgender Illinoisans for her personal political benefit,” Johnson said in a statement. 
 
 On Saturday night, Rauner and his wife, Diana, are scheduled to make their first-ever appearance at the organization’s gala fundraising event and paid $25,000 as “platinum sponsors,” the group said. Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker and his wife, Mary Kay, gave $15,000 as “gold sponsors” of the event. Pritzker chaired the group’s fundraiser in 2016. 
 
 Ives’ ad also features an actor wearing a hoodie and a handkerchief around his mouth saying, “Thank you Bruce Rauner for opposing law enforcement and making Illinois a sanctuary state for illegal immigrant criminals.” 
 
 A law Rauner signed in August ultimately was backed by major law enforcement groups. It prevents law enforcement from detaining someone solely on the basis of their legal status. It also prevents law enforcement turning over someone to immigration authorities without a judicial warrant. 
 
 The Illinois Business Immigration Coalition, which advocated for the law, issued a statement saying Ives’ ad “is full of misinformation, hate and bigotry.” 
 
 The ad’s depiction of a women’s rights protester talking about getting “abortions” was a reference to Rauner’s signature on legislation that expanded taxpayer-subsidized abortions for women covered by Medicaid and state employee health insurance. 
 
 Ives has maintained Rauner’s approval of the law motivated her candidacy after he had earlier told conservatives that he would veto the measure. Rauner has said his support for abortion rights was evident from his first bid for governor four years ago. 
 
 Terry Cosgrove, president and CEO of Personal PAC, an abortion rights political advocacy group, said Ives was appealing to “the craziest of the crazy” and displaying the “lowest form of politics.” 
 
 “She wants to make all abortions and the most commonly used from of birth control illegal in Illinois,” said Cosgrove, whose group has endorsed Pritzker in the Democratic primary. “This is an extreme right-wing position that totally ignores the reality of most people's lives.” 
 
 Another part of the ad features an African-American woman wearing a red Chicago Teachers Union T-shirt thanking Rauner “for making the rest of Illinois bail out Chicago teacher pensions and giving (Mayor) Rahm (Emanuel) everything he wanted and more.” 
 
 In late August, Rauner signed a historic rewrite of the state’s school funding formula after vetoing an earlier version that he contended was a “bailout” for the Chicago Public Schools. 
 
 The version the governor signed has the state picking up a larger share of city teacher pension costs, in line with all the other school districts in the state, while also allowing higher city property taxes to help fund pensions. Emanuel said the bill gave CPS all the money it was slated to get “and more.” 
 
 Asked for a reaction to the ad, Chicago Teachers Union spokeswoman Chris Geovanis emailed, “we’re not going to dignify this racist, sexist, homophobic piece of crap with a response.” 

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 poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201802/2364/1155968404_5726464628001_5726461990001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true 'Repulsive' campaign ad creates firestorm in Illinois 
 
 CHICAGO — A new ad that’s been denounced as anti-immigrant, “racist,” “sexist” and “transphobic,” is causing an uproar in Illinois, with leaders from both parties calling for its removal. 
 
 But Republican state Rep. Jeanne Ives, whose campaign produced the ad in her primary election challenge to Gov. Bruce Rauner, is refusing to pull the spot, saying it exposes Rauner’s “betrayal” of GOP voters. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 The new ad mockingly thanks the governor for clearing a path in support of a series of social issues. Then it taps just about every conservative bogeyman in Illinois politics, and every lightning-rod cultural issue. 
 
 “Thank you, for signing legislation that lets me use the girl’s bathroom,” says a deep-voiced actor. 
 
 “Thank you, for making all Illinois families pay for my abortions,” says a woman wearing a pink hat symbolic of women’s marches. An African-American woman wearing a Chicago Teachers Union shirt “thanks” Rauner for purportedly making the rest of the state bail out city public schools and teachers pensions. 
 
 The ad plays off an earlier Rauner ad that his campaign ran statewide for months entitled “Thanks, Mike,” and featured GOP governors from surrounding states thanking Rauner nemesis state House Speaker Michael Madigan for “blocking Rauner’s reforms.” 
 
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 Reaction to the ad was swift, with harsh criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. “This TV ad has no place in Illinois,” Rauner’s campaign spokesman Will Allison said. “It just shows how unelectable Representative Ives really is.” 
 
 Republican Party Chair Tim Schneider called on Ives to pull the ad. 
 
 “There is no place in the Illinois Republican Party for rhetoric that attacks our fellow Illinoisans based on their race, gender or humanity,” Schneider said in a statement. “Representative Ives' campaign ad does not reflect who we are as the Party of Lincoln and as proud residents of our great and diverse state. She should pull down the ad and immediately apologize to the Illinoisans who were negatively portrayed in a cowardly attempt to stoke political division.” 
 
 Republican Attorney General Candidate Erika Harold said the ad “denigrates, mocks and marginalizes groups of Illinoisans and cannot represent our Republican Party. I call on the Ives campaign to immediately take it off the air.” 
 
 The ad created a firestorm on Twitter and Facebook over the weekend, with all three Democratic candidates for governor disparaging the ad in the strongest language — one of them referred to it as “repulsive.” 
 
 The ad proved so controversial that some Ives supporters accused a Springfield blogger, Capitol Fax, of making it up when the site first reported on the ad on Friday. 
 
 But the Ives campaign adamantly refuses to take it down, saying it was Rauner and Schneider who should apologize to Republican voters and calling the spot an “illustration” of the governor’s “real agenda.” 
 
 “His accomplishments are limited to crony bailouts and radically liberal social policies. Many found this shocking,” Ives campaign statement reads. “The truth is Governor Rauner abandoned House and Senate Republicans to advance his leftist policy agenda time and again, signing the pieces of legislation featured in Ives’ ‘Thank you, Bruce Rauner’ ad that few, if any, Republicans supported.” 
 
 Ives, once a Rauner ally, launched her candidacy last year after Rauner signed a bill that expands the public funding of abortion to those receiving Medicaid and to state workers — he had previously promised the conservative caucus he would veto it. 
 
 Rauner, a multimillionaire, has upwards of $50 million in his campaign fund and had largely ignored the little-known state legislator, calling Ives a “fringe candidate.” But Ives’ strong showing at a debate before the Chicago Tribune editorial board last week, as well as a $500,000 boost from conservative donor Dick Uihlein, has pushed her into the spotlight. 
 
 The cloud of disdain that permeates Ives’ ad represents a state Republican Party very much at war with itself. Among the most vocal against Rauner is conservative radio show host and GOP strategist Dan Proft, who defected for the Ives campaign. 
 
 Before that, Proft had worked for years with Rauner on state political races. The governor had given Proft millions of dollars to use in a political action committee. 
 
 “Rep. Jeanne Ives has associated herself with questionable individuals that really don’t represent the views of the people of Illinois,” the governor told a college reporter over the weekend. He did not elaborate to whom he was referring. 
 
 Some conservatives are sticking by Ives — and the incendiary campaign ad. 
 
 “In an age of ambiguity in politics, it’s a clear, unambiguous message about what Rauner stands for,” said John McGlasson, a member of the GOP’s state central committee, in a statement released by the Ives campaign. “Everything in the video is correct.” 
 
 Advertising data indicates that Ives placed at least $1 million in TV ads for the month of February though it was unclear how much money was behind each of two spots. 
 
 On Friday, in addition to the “Thank you, Bruce Rauner,” Ives released an ad promoting her background as a conservative, West Point graduate, state representative and mother of five. 
 
 
 
 Ives tweeted Sunday that “Our new campaign ad will run during Super Bowl LII. The ad is scheduled to air at the end of the second quarter during the first break into halftime.” 
 
 
 
 CORRECTION: The original version of this story included incorrect information related to the funding of Proft publications. That information has been removed.
– On March 20, Illinois state Rep. Jeanne Ives will challenge Gov. Bruce Rauner in the GOP primary for his seat, but the most highly charged night in the race may not be that one. Ives is under fire for a campaign ad, one that the state's GOP chair says "does not reflect who we are as the Party of Lincoln," per the Chicago Tribune. In the video ad, which was produced by the Ives campaign, a series of people sarcastically and mockingly thank Rauner for his expansion of transgender, abortion, and immigration rights in Illinois. "Thank you for signing legislation that lets me use the girl's bathroom," says an actor with a deep voice, described by the Washington Post as dressed as a woman but bearing a "faint five o'clock shadow." A woman in a pink Women's March hat next cheerfully thanks Rauner "for making all Illinois families pay for my abortions," while a man cloaked in a hoodie and face-covering bandanna thanks him for making Illinois "a sanctuary state for illegal immigrant criminals." Republicans as well as Democrats were quick to call for the ad to be pulled, but Politico reports Ives has dug her heels in, saying it wouldn't come down and that it shines a light on Rauner's "real agenda." The Tribune reports her campaign calls the ad a "fair and accurate representation of the implications" of Rauner's policies, but the paper notes the transgender claim in the ad isn't accurate, in that the legislation Rauner signed affects not bathrooms but birth certificate alterations.