Former President Donald Trump endorsed downstate U.S. Rep. Mike Bost for reelection Tuesday, dealing a major blow to Darren Bailey’s insurgent challenge in one of the nation’s most closely watched Republican primary races. Bost, a five-term congressman from Murphysboro, and Bailey, a former state legislator from Xenia who was the losing Republican candidate for governor in 2022, each had sought the backing of the former president for the March 19 GOP primary in the state’s 12th Congressional District, an overwhelmingly Republican rural district that makes up roughly the bottom third of the sta…
