* Greg Hinz…

Tomorrow’s showdown vote on whether U.S. House Republicans will dump Rep. Liz Cheney as their No. 3 leader may well tell us a lot about the future of Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, and whether he’s seriously eyeing a race against Gov. J.B. Pritzker next year.

A vote to remove the Wyoming Republican will be taken as a sign that Davis, who has been rising fast in the GOP ranks and is considered a close ally of House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, wants to stay in the House, where some consider him a committee chairman-in-waiting if the GOP takes control of that chamber next year. […]

(W)hat might be popular downstate or in pro-Trump areas tends to be the opposite in the rest of now- heavily blue Illinois. Says one top state Republican, speaking privately, “If he’s going to run for governor, he can’t vote to get rid of Cheney.”

Davis has a long voting history, so I doubt it’ll come down to that one vote in an actual gubernatorial election. But it will be watched closely by people who follow this sort of thing – a sort of “pundit moment” for Davis.

* The vote will take place behind closed doors, however. So there’s no guarantee we’ll know for sure what happened with individual members. From the DCCC…

Just days after GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney did the bare minimum and refused to promote the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, House Republicans shamelessly began their effort to replace her as the Number 3 Republican in the caucus. In her place, Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has propped up Elise Stefanik, a Trump loyalist who peddles dangerous conspiracies about the results of the election.

Evidently, McCarthy’s concern about the silencing of conservative voices doesn’t apply if it’s a woman in his caucus who refuses to lie. If Republicans believe this vote is fair, why are they choosing to hide behind a secret ballot? Rep. Rodney Davis has refused to tell the Chicago Sun Times and Illinois Playbook where he stands — voters deserve to know whether he will punish Rep. Cheney for voicing the truth.

It’s clear that in order to succeed in the House GOP, members must promote dangerous conspiracies like the ones that caused the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

“It’s increasingly obvious that there’s only room in the House Republican caucus for people who will continue to promote Trump’s Big Lie and put our democracy at risk. This vote tells the American people that McCarthy and Republicans would rather punish Rep. Cheney for telling the truth about our elections than denounce Marjorie Taylor Greene’s racist white supremacist caucus or Matt Gaetz’s credibly alleged sex trafficking crimes. Rep. Rodney Davis owes it to his voters to let them know which side he stands on,” said DCCC Spokesperson Elena Kuhn.