Day one of the Republican National Convention saw an array of GOP leaders and surrogates making their case against Joe Biden. 

“Biden is basically the Loch Ness monster of the swamp. For the past half-century, he’s been lurking around in there. He sticks his head up every now and then to run for president, then he disappears and doesn’t do much in between,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a speech Monday night.

Republicans repeatedly cast Biden as the leader of the “radical left,” while pushing President Donald Trump as the “law and order” candidate. 

It’s a charge being echoed by Jeanne Ives, the Republican candidate for Congress in Illinois’ 6th District who is also a former state representative and former candidate for governor. 

“Joe Biden, who used to be considered sort of a moderate Democrat … he has actually turned far more radical left than anybody would have expected,” Ives said Tuesday on “Chicago Tonight.” “I mean, he’s endorsed some of the crazy ideas from AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) and Bernie Sanders, quite frankly.” 

Another tenet of the Republican’s messaging that was on view Monday: Democrats want to “abolish the suburbs” through housing policies that would make towns more dense. 

It was a charge laid out explicitly on Monday by Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple from St. Louis who received widespread news coverage for pointing guns at protesters outside their home in July. The couple was later charged with unlawful use of a weapon. 

“[Democrats are] not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs altogether,” Patrica McCloskey said in a video that aired Monday during the convention.

Ives says the couple’s assertion is valid, and that Democrats want federal zoning rules to overrule laws made by local municipalities.

“To essentially decide what housing is going to be located where, and to get rid of single-family dwellings throughout the suburbs,” she said. “So there is an overture to attack the suburbs.” 

Ives narrowly lost Illinois’ 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary to former Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, who in turn lost to Gov. J.B. Pritzker in the general election.

Ives said the state GOP’s strategy moving forward should focus on the record of Democrats long in charge in Springfield. 

“Nobody should be voting for a Democrat in this state. We’re the worst fiscally managed state in the union, and they want to pile on more taxes,” she said.