Jason Plummer Has Nothing but Contempt for the Grassroots Who Elect Him
His own 2024 campaign filings are direct evidence: he takes their votes, takes them for granted, and gives them next to nothing in return.
In 2024, Jason Plummer ran for re-election to the Illinois Senate and won without a fight. He had no opponent. Across the 55th District, 95,805 people filled in the oval next to his name and sent him back to Springfield. So in that year, the year his own voters handed him another term, what did Jason Plummer do for the county Republican organizations that turn out those votes? I pulled his 2024 campaign finance filings to find out. The answer is two hundred dollars.
Two hundred dollars. That is the grand total Jason Plummer gave to the county Republican Central Committees across his entire district in all of 2024, and every dollar of it went to a single county, Clay. The other ten counties he represents got nothing. Not Marion County, which gave him 14,249 votes. Not Fayette, Bond, Richland, Washington, Clinton, St. Clair, Effingham, or Montgomery. And not Madison County, where he lives. His own home county party got zero.
Now look at where his money actually went. That same year, Plummer's committee wired $205,400 to the Senate Republican Victory Fund, the caucus war chest controlled by the Springfield leadership. Set the two numbers side by side. Two hundred and five thousand dollars to the Springfield machine. Two hundred dollars to the county parties of southern Illinois. That is a ratio of more than one thousand to one. For every single dollar he put behind the volunteers back home, he shipped more than a thousand to the insiders in the capitol.
For every dollar he put behind the volunteers back home, he shipped more than a thousand to the insiders in the capitol.
And do not let anyone tell you the money was not there. In 2024 alone, Jason Plummer moved nearly half a million dollars, $471,531, through his campaign committee. He found $15,000 for one favored Madison County candidate and another $15,000 for a second. He had $205,400 for Springfield. He simply decided that the Republican county organizations, the precinct committeemen and the volunteers who knock the doors in the July heat and run the booth at the county fair, were worth two hundred dollars. Total. In an election year.
Make no mistake about what these numbers are. This is direct evidence, in Jason Plummer's own hand, that he has no care whatsoever for the grassroots of this party. He does not merely overlook the county organizations. He takes advantage of them. He lets the volunteers do the work, bank the votes, and carry his name across eleven counties, and he hands them next to nothing in return, because in his mind he is above them. That is the arrogance of it. He treats the people who put him in office as labor to be used, not partners to be respected.
Ask around the county parties of this district and you will hear the same thing. If Jason Plummer deigns to appear at your Lincoln Day dinner at all, you get five minutes and a handshake, and you are expected to feel fortunate that he graced you with his presence, because more often than not he does not bother to show up. This is a man who wants your vote in November and cannot find an hour, or two hundred dollars, for you the other eleven months of the year. That is not a representative. That is a politician who has decided he is too important for the very people he represents.
Every number here comes straight from public records: the official 2024 Illinois State Board of Elections canvass and Plummer's own campaign disclosures. He reported all of it himself. A politician's spending is a confession of his priorities, and in his re-election year Jason Plummer confessed plainly. Springfield first. His handpicked allies second. The grassroots Republicans of southern Illinois, the very people who returned him to office, dead last, for two hundred dollars.
The Republicans of Madison, Marion, Fayette, Bond, Richland, Washington, Clinton, St. Clair, Effingham, and Montgomery Counties gave Jason Plummer a near-unanimous mandate in 2024. They deserve a senator who believes they are worth more than the loose change in his pocket. Until we stop rewarding politicians who harvest our loyalty and give nothing back, this neglect is exactly the representation we will keep getting.
Sources: Illinois State Board of Elections, official 2024 General Election canvass (precinct level), 55th Senate District; campaign expenditure filings, Plummer for Illinois (committee #22279), calendar year 2024.