Catalina Lauf Vows To Beat 'Fake Republican Adam Kinzinger'

JOLIET, IL — Channahon Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger's decision to repeatedly criticize former President Trump and vote in favor of Trump's impeachment continues to rile up the Republican Party in Illinois to come up new ways to get rid of Kinzinger as the congressman for the 16th District in Illinois.

On Tuesday, Catalina Lauf, who entered politics with a failed Republican primary bid last March, announced her intention to run against Kinzinger next year.

"I have officially announced my campaign for Congress in Illinois' 16th district," Lauf wrote. "Adam Kinzinger's vote to impeach Trump was just one of his MANY betrayals to his constituents. I will need your help as I take on Adam & the establishment."

Last March, Lauf lost in a crowded seven-person Republican primary to Jim Oberweis in the 14th Congressional District race.

The Oberweis primary margin of victory over Lauf was less than 3,000 votes.

This week, Lauf has her sights set on ousting Kinzinger in the 2022 Republican primary in the event that the Channahon Republican seeks a seventh term. Kinzinger just won an easy re-election race over a La Salle County Democrat in November.

Meanwhile, Kinzinger's support within the Republican Party's leadership in Illinois continues to erode. Over the weekend, Patch reported the Will County Republican Party Central Committee voted 111 to 5 with one abstention to censure Kinzinger.

"Our censure is a formal rebuke against his unilateral actions to raise money and attack over 74 million Americans and their elected Republican officials who supported Trump's take-action and broker no BS attitude from the D.C. swamp. Our censure also states that we will work hard in the Primary to elect a Representative for the People, by the People."

In recent months, Kinzinger has appeared numerous times on CNN to speak out against Trump and TIME recently praised him in a write-up that states, "Over the past few months, Congressman Adam Kinzinger has stood up for the truth when it was most challenging and least convenient. In the wake of the insurrection at the Capitol in January, Adam was the first Republican member of Congress to step forward and call for the removal of President Trump from office via the 25th Amendment. In standing up for what he believed was right, Adam proved the measure of his courage."

On Tuesday, Lauf made a social media post calling Kinzinger a Republican in name only.

"Fake Republican Adam Kinzinger won’t put AMERICA FIRST— I will," she said on Twitter.

In August 2019, Patch columnist Mark Konkol wrote that Lauf grew up in Woodstock, frequenting the town's farmers markets, where her bee-keeping father still hawks his hand-crafted brand of local nectar, Ole Leo's Honey.

At the time, the then-26-year-old Trump-supporting Latina from Woodstock successfully branded herself as the Republican Party's Illinois counterpoint to New York Democratic-Socialist Sen. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Konkol reported.

Lauf moved back home with her mom and dad after an eight-month stint as a Trump-appointed adviser in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Now she splits time working as a consultant for one of her dad's businesses and hitting the campaign trail in a jagged district that stretches from the Wisconsin border to Will County between Gurnee and Sycamore.

Related:

• Kinzinger's Family Considers Him 'A Disappointment:' Reports
• 'The President Is Unfit:' Kinzinger Calls For 25th Amendment