SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — The Republican candidate for Illinois lieutenant governor asked a state official if he knew of any jobs in the agency where he worked and made a joke suggesting the state’s capital city lacks sophistication.

The Springfield bureau of Lee Enterprises reports Friday that Evelyn Sanguinetti sent an email to a Department of Human Rights staff attorney asking if there were any job openings.

In the 2013 email obtained by the paper, the Wheaton Republican asked if “cow tipping” was a job requirement in Springfield.

The email comes during a campaign in which she and Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner have portrayed themselves as political outsiders.

Rauner campaign spokesman Mike Schrimpf says Sanguinetti’s emails were to a law school classmate. He dismissed any suggestion she was disparaging downstate Illinois.

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