Joshua Loyd is currently running for the Republican nomination of the 13th Congressional District of Illinois. He will face fellow Republican Thomas Clatterbuck in the primary on March 19. The winner of the primary will face incumbent Democrat Nikki Budzinski in the election this November.
The Daily Illini sat down with Loyd to discuss some of his policies and how he has been campaigning so far.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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The Daily Illini: Can you start by introducing yourself and giving us a little about your background?
Loyd: My name is Joshua Loyd. I’m originally from Carbondale, but after the military, I settled down in Virden, which is in Macoupin County. Outside of the military, I’ve been involved with the trades and several volunteer organizations.
DI: What kind of volunteering have you done? And what kind of trades?
Loyd: I was the state president for an organization called SkillsUSA. It’s a career technical student organization that represents the trades and labor and partners with business and industry in order to ensure we have a skilled workforce. In terms of volunteer organizations, I’ve done everything from government volunteer organizations to private volunteer organizations with Boy Scouts of America, The Salvation Army. Through these organizations, I actually have three presidential service awards — the highest level being the gold standard.
DI: Can you give a brief overview of your platform?
Loyd: I’m running on three pillars: the teacher, peacher and service. Together, these represent the mind, heart and strength of our community. Three things I believe we have either lost or moved away from that we need to get back to.
DI: What have you been doing so far to campaign and connect to voters?
Loyd: The best thing I think is just getting out in the community, talking with people on the street, going to coffee shops, seeing what the everyday issues are, seeing what people actually care about. It’s one thing to hear what the news tells you is the issue, but when you actually get out and talk with the people, it is very different.
DI: Is there any way you’ve been trying to campaign to students?
Loyd: I have not gotten to the universities as much as I would like to. I did one event up at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. Going forward, I would like to get to the campuses more. In the district, we have several universities. We have SIU Edwardsville, UIS, Millikin University, Blackburn College, University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana. One thing I want to do is come talk to more students because I think there’s a lot of misconceptions within the belief versus actuality. A lot of emotion is thrown around, but we have to get back to objective data.
DI: What is your policy towards gun legislation?
Loyd: I’m a very big gun advocate. I don’t think people understand how large the gun population is. For every American there are something like 12 guns. When we talk about gun violence … of the about 50,000 people who die due to firearms, 54% of them were self-inflicted or suicides. We have a very small subgroup of people committing the vast majority of the 20,000 homicides in the United States. For a country of 300-million-plus people, that is a very small number compared to how many firearms we have.
It usually gets portrayed in the media as a vast issue, and I’m not saying we don’t have a crime or murder issue, but when you look at it objectively, it’s a very small percent of people actually producing gun violence in very small groups in the United States. If you take out Washington DC, Chicago and LA, we have one of the safest nations on earth.
DI: Why do you think you’d be the right candidate to run against Nikki Budzinski?
Loyd: I don’t think I’m an extremist. You can’t necessarily say the same about her. She’s playing the line right now, but if you look at her history, she’s worked with the very far left. These very large names with very large political sway on one side of the aisle. On the other side of that, I don’t think I’m too far from the actual community. I feel the struggles everyday people have.
DI: How does your military background affect how you would be as a representative?
Loyd: I definitely think it helps. When we talk about war or violence, there are strict laws that we have to abide by. It’s called just war theory. That is the primary purpose of the Geneva Conventions and what we base our policy on. It is what is ethical.
In terms of global affairs, one of the things I studied quite significantly was East Asia. In terms of China, people don’t realize how big of a threat they are. I think it’s very important to understand these relationships between a nation and how their global effect and global partnerships affect them internally and how that affects war, trade or even small relations as having a conversation.
Voting for the Illinois Primary will take place on March 19, but early voting at the Champaign County Clerk’s Office in Urbana is ongoing beginning in February.
