Another Republican candidate has announced their intention to defeat U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood in the 16th Congressional District.
The reliably red district covers parts of Bloomington-Normal and stretches north to the Wisconsin border.
MAGA candidate John Kitover is a former Internal Revenue Service employee who worked in project and facilities management. He previously served for four years in the Army National Guard. He resigned from his job in May to run full time in the district of central and northwestern Illinois.
Garth Gullette of Chillilothe is also seeking the GOP nomination in the 2026 primary.
Referring to himself as a "carpetbagger," Kitover said the reason to leave his job after five years was to primary LaHood. While currently residing in the Chicago-area neighborhood of Jefferson Park, he is running in LaHood’s district to take him on directly.
“Darin LaHood, in my opinion, doesn’t fall far from his father’s tree, which is Ray LaHood, transportation secretary under [President] Obama,” said Kitover. “Darin LaHood is nothing but a Democrat marching around pretending to be a Republican.”
Kitover said LaHood is a RINO. The word, which stands for “Republican in Name Only,” is a pejorative with origins from 1992. It is used against Republicans who are seen as an inauthentic member of the party.
“[LaHood’s] been in office 10 years creating $2 trillion a year in debt, so it’s really going to take patriotic Americans who can recognize the financial crisis that we’re in that are going to stand up, stand with [U.S. reps.] Thomas Massie, Rand Paul and other fiscal conservatives against individuals like Darin LaHood,” Kitover said.
Attacks on LaHood
Kitover has positioned his campaign in direct opposition with LaHood.
He has included direct attacks at LaHood on his campaign website, where he said LaHood sold the future of his constituents to their “never ending taxation.”
“We have $37 trillion in funded debt and $100 trillion in unfunded debt liabilities, so with the Big, Beautiful Bill, Darin has given over $500 billion a year in tax credits to the biggest Fortune 500 corporations,” he said. “On the back end, Darin LaHood is borrowing your future and sticking you with debt and taxes. Not today, but in the future.”
Comparatively, the U.S. Treasury Department says the national deficit, or the amount by which the federal government’s spending exceeds its revenue, currently sits at $1.62 trillion.
Kitover also claimed LaHood to be a “traitor” to the Second Amendment, which outlines gun rights in the Constitution.
“He wants to raise the minimum age in order to purchase a firearm in this country, and it’s my belief that…but firearms, not only are they for self-defense and our own security in our homes, but it’s to prevent from tyrannical government from usurping your rights and enslaving you and making your life miserable,” he said.
Kitover referenced a 2022 article from WCBU, where LaHood said he was open to revisiting raising the minimum age to buy an assault weapon. Two days later, LaHood voted against a major gun control bill which would have done just that.
Kitover described the issue of firearms as personal to him, and any discussion about restricting them is a waste of time to him.
Another claim made by Kitover surrounding LaHood was over vaccines, he said LaHood lied about the COVID-19 virus and about its vaccines.
“The government is responsible for funding and creating COVID-19…you can go to his X account and view all his posts about ‘get vaccinated or this pandemic will never end’ or ‘get vaccinated or you can never go back to work,’” Kitover said.
For his part, Kitover raised unfounded claims about the U.S. government's ties to a lab in Wuhan, China, suggesting they implicate the U.S. in creation of the virus that causes COVID-19.
The BBC earlier this year reported a German spy agency's claim that it's likely that the coronavirus mistakenly leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Kitover said LaHood was simply retelling the talking points of Pfizer, Moderna and other Big Pharma organizations.
“There’s a lot of controversy, I know people are very angry about the vaccine, they’re very angry about the spending related to it,” he said. “I am and that’s why I’m running against Darin LaHood to defeat him.”
Kitover said his criticisms of LaHood extend to the rest of the Republican party and to the Democratic party, who are also creating debt with their votes.
However, his criticism doesn’t extend to President Donald Trump, even though he spearheaded acts like the Big, Beautiful Bill which Kitover said added to the deficit.
“I want to make America great again, I feel the Democrats are a danger to our republic, a danger to our society,” he said.
Kitover said Trump has been “a great blessing.”
A longshot bid
LaHood, who has been in Congress since 2015, is a familiar face to the 16th district and. Kitover has a strategy to familiarize himself to voters.
“It’s really to put out as much content as I can, get out and meet as many voters as I can,” he said. “The way to fight Darin LaHood is with transparency and actually accurately describing the situation that we are in a tremendous fiscal crisis in this country.”
Kitover said he knows the hold Darin LaHood has over the district as the familiar incumbent. Not only that, but he has campaign warchest much bigger than his own.
“I have crowdfunded only $1,000 from social audio apps, Darin LaHood has over $10 million sitting in his bank account from Pfizer, Moderna, Blue Cross, Caterpillar,” Kitover said. “Every major corporation keeps giving to Darin because Darin keeps giving them $2 trillion a year. He’s been in office 10 years, and if we’re creating over $2 trillion a year in debt, Darin has created $20 trillion in debt.”
As of June 30 of this year, the Federal Elections Commission reported Darin LaHood’s cash on hand is $6.23 million.
Agriculture
The 16th Congressional District contains significant areas of rural towns and farmland, making agriculture an important issue to constituents.
Kitover’s agriculture policy includes examining subsidies to farmers.
“When you go to the grocery store, when you buy fruit, when you buy vegetables, that’s not coming from the United States of America. That’s coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama. We bring in a lot of food products,” he said.
Kitover said all Americans need to come together to stop spending and borrowing.
“Unfortunately, we have a system of governance where we do a lot of kickbacks to farmers, and I’m not saying it should stop entirely, but after 25 years of war and a pandemic scam-demic, we need to tighten our belts fiscally,” Kitover said.
More cuts
The cuts to spending for Kitover do not end in agriculture. It extends to other policy areas, including education.
“We spend $88 billion a month on education in this country, the national defense authorization, which is our defense, is $1 trillion a year, our national interest is $1 trillion a year, Medicare, Medicaid is $4 trillion a year,” he said. “We have to cut basically everything.”
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the federal government has spent $823 billion on Medicare, $758 billion on national defense and $164 billion on Education so far this fiscal year.
Kitover said the cost of education is heavy, including books, technology and teacher salaries. He said cost savings has to exist somewhere.
“Education gets a free ride as far as I’m concerned, and in Chicago we have a major problem with the leadership in education,” he said. “The teachers unions, they’re radical Marxists socialists who are brainwashing children and providing them not with logic, reading and the basics of education. They’re providing them with basically a Marxist indoctrination.”
Economy
Kitover said he is ant-tariffs. However, he does agree with the strategic use of them to bolster U.S. industry growth.
“If the president wants Ford to get into China or wants Goldman-Sachs or Morgan-Stanley to get into China, if we can competitively use tariffs to force our position overseas, they should be reciprocal,” he said.
Kitover said tariffs are unconstitutional and can hurt the economy, but it should not be controversial to use them if they eventually encourage growth.
The primary election is March 17, 2026.
