Latest news with #Pritzker2026
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ill. Gov. JB Pritzker makes third term bid official, castigates Trump and Democrats who shy away from progressive causes
CHICAGO — Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker formally declared his candidacy for a third term as Illinois' chief executive on Thursday, vowing to build on a legacy of accomplishments as he criticized President Donald Trump, called Republicans a 'cult,' and even slammed Democrats who are shying away from progressive social causes. Kicking off his 2026 campaign in a 25-minute speech before a couple of hundred supporters at the Grand Crossing Field House on Chicago's South Side, Pritzker also did little to dispel speculation about a 2028 run for president. He routinely touched on national themes — including the importance of the youth vote and the need among Democrats to focus on affordability issues — and he dodged when asked if he would pledge to serve a full, four-year term if reelected governor in November 2026. 'I ran for governor in 2018 to change our story. I ran for governor in 2022 to keep telling our story. And I am running for governor in 2026 to protect our story because our story is now one of fiscal responsibility, of social accountability, of modern adaptability,' Pritzker said. 'Our story values love over hate, courage over fear, kindness over cruelty. Our story doesn't have a cult telling us what to believe, or sycophants telling us what to say, or a king telling us what to do.' Pritzker has emerged nationally as one of the most prominent Democratic voices taking on the Republican president among sometimes listless party leadership. He has said his role as Illinois governor provides him a 'bully pulpit' as he presents himself as a bulwark against Trump's efforts to reshape America. Though he never mentioned Trump by name in his South Side speech, Pritzker referred to the president and Republicans in Washington as 'the megalomaniac narcissist in the White House and his malignant clown car in Congress' and as 'fascist freakshow fanatics' who are running 'their experiments on ending democracy.' But in a two-minute campaign launch video, Pritzker lashed out at the president more directly and by name. 'We know government ought to stand up for working families and be a force for good, not a weapon of revenge,' Pritzker says in the video. 'Donald Trump's made clear, he'll stop at nothing to get his way. I'm not about to stand by and let him tear down all we're building in Illinois.' The event at the Grand Crossing Park Field House was the exact location where Pritzker set in motion his initial bid for chief executive in April 2017. As he did on Thursday, Pritzker back then attacked Trump. 'Everything we care about is under siege by Donald Trump and Bruce Rauner,' he said then, also citing the one-term Republican governor whom he would go on to defeat handily in the 2018 general election. The South Side rally Thursday morning was part of a six-stop, two-day statewide announcement tour that included visits to Rockford, Peoria and Springfield on Thursday and Belleville and West Frankfort on Friday. In the campaign video, Pritzker appears in the small town of Chestnut, which is the geographic center of the state, to make his case that Illinois is in the middle of the national battle over politics and government. 'These days, Illinois is standing at the center of the fight: The fight to make life more affordable, the fight to protect our freedoms, the fight for common sense,' the governor says, focusing on Trump before pivoting to what Pritzker describes as his successes since he first took office in 2019, including balanced budgets, state credit upgrades and hiking the minimum wage. Pritzker, a 60-year-old entrepreneur and heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, is one of the nation's wealthiest politicians, with a net worth of $3.7 billion, according to Forbes. Trump is estimated by Forbes to be worth $5.5 billion. In his two previous successful campaigns, Pritzker has spent $350 million of his personal wealth. He has also seeded state and local Democratic organizations with tens of millions of dollars, creating a robust political infrastructure that has resulted in Democratic supermajorities in the Illinois House and Senate. Following his speech in Chicago, Pritzker added to the presidential speculation when he wouldn't directly answer after being asked by reporters if he would pledge to serve a full, four-year term as governor if reelected. 'I'm running for governor of Illinois. I want to be governor of Illinois. That's four more years,' he said. 'Truly, everything that I do in my job, and every day when I wake up, is about improving the lot of people who live in the state of Illinois, lifting up the working families of Illinois. Whatever I do going forward is going to be about that,' he added. Should he run and win the presidency, the lieutenant governor would take over for the final two years of the third term, and Pritzker has yet to announce who his running mate will be. Current Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton is running next year for U.S. Senate to succeed retiring Sen. Dick Durbin. The governor's announcement Thursday puts him in a position to be in rarefied air in the world of Illinois politics. If Pritzker wins a third term, he'd become the first Democratic governor in state history to be elected to more than two terms and the first governor since Republican James R. Thompson served 14 years from 1977 to 1991. Illinois has no term limits on its constitutional offices. In addition to touting efforts to stabilize Illinois' long-shaky financial governance through balanced budgets and credit upgrades, Pritzker — who has repeatedly described himself as a 'pragmatic progressive' — also highlighted that he's increased protections for abortion access, signed bans on assault weapons and added jobs to the state's economy. Moreover, he appeared to take note of the Tuesday victory of 33-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary as indicative of the need for the party nationally to motivate younger voters and adopt Mamdani's focus on economic and affordability issues. 'For too long, politicians have chosen what is safe over what is bold. It's time to take our cues from the young people showing up and shouting out that you can't abandon the fight before you even start it — fear of failure is not an excuse to never even try,' he said. 'We have remained tethered to past policy accomplishments and weighed down by past policy failures. We are too unwilling to embrace the vision and drive and energy of new leaders when our old ones refuse to adapt. Change must and will come,' Pritzker said, citing those failures as a factor for Trump's reelection to a second, nonconsecutive term in 2024. At the same time, Pritzker said 'we must reckon with the fact that everything is too damned expensive.' 'From groceries to concert tickets to mortgages to cars to health care, we have created a world where one job isn't enough to raise kids, one salary not enough to own a home and one lifetime of work not enough to earn retirement. And the answer does not lie in tariffs that tax workers, budgets that gut Medicaid, and DOGE bros that strip research funding from our universities,' he said, referring to Trump administration policies and its Department of Government Efficiency. 'Instead, the answer starts with growing Illinois' economy, with relentlessly pursuing the industries and jobs of the future,' he said. Affordability, he told reporters later, 'is what Democrats need to be focused on every single day, day in and day out.' In his speech, Pritzker also appeared to castigate some potential Democratic challengers in a 2028 presidential bid for moving to embrace a center-left ideology at the expense of the progressive social movement. Two Democrats who might run in 2028 and have been criticized for encouraging a party shift to the center are California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Pritzker friend. 'If you stood up for diversity, equity and inclusion when it was easy, then you'd better be standing up for it now, when it's hard. If you protected the rights of the LGBTQ community and immigrants and Black and brown people two years ago, well then you'd better not abandon them today. Because let me tell you something — of all the unbecoming qualities that Americans hate in their politicians — they hate cowardice the most,' Pritzker said. 'I'd rather lose standing up for what I believe in than win by selling out those who believed in me,' he said. 'And I'll reserve my disgust not for the most vulnerable people in our society, but for the politicians and talking heads who would sacrifice them on the altar of their own ambitions.' Pritzker is a prohibitive favorite to reclaim the Democratic nomination for governor in the March 17, 2026, primary. No major Republican candidate has yet to surface. The biggest GOP name so far is DuPage County Sheriff James Mendrick — and while Pritzker's intention to seek reelection became public on Tuesday, the moribund Illinois GOP waited two days to issue a statement. 'He's not solving problems, he's selling out Illinois for applause in D.C.,' a fundraising email from the state Republican Party said, echoing what is likely to be the main GOP attack line of using a potential presidential bid against Pritzker. 'This is bigger than one state. If Pritzker gets four more years, it puts him one step closer to the presidency, and his radical blueprint could go nationwide,' the GOP fundraising email said. But Pritzker said the national attention he has gained was not an act. 'Who I am and what I stand for is not a 'bit.' I don't really care what the D.C. dinner circuit thinks about my unabashed defense of democracy and courage and kindness. My convictions were forged here with you, and they stand in service to Illinoisans,' he said. 'This state and its people helped shape this country, and the last time we faced an existential threat to our nation, it was a son of Illinois who kept us together,' he said, referring to President Abraham Lincoln. ____
Fox News
a day ago
- Business
- Fox News
JB Pritzker takes aim at Trump in launching Democratic re-election bid for Illinois governor
Spotlighting his accomplishments and highlighting his pushback against President Donald Trump's sweeping and controversial agenda, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Thursday launched his campaign for a third term as Illinois governor. "I'm ready for the fight ahead," the governor said, announcing his 2026 re-election bid in the blue state. Pritzker is a billionaire and a member of the Pritzker family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain. Pritzker said that "Illinois is standing at the center of the fight: the fight to make life more affordable, the fight to protect our freedoms, the fight for common sense." Pritzker has become one of the Democratic Party's most vocal Trump critics during the opening months of the president's second tour in the White House. Pointing to Trump and the Republicans who control Congress, Pritzker argued that "in Washington, all they're offering is chaos and craziness. Their tariffs are hurting farmers and small businesses, stripping away health care from seniors and working families and proposing even bigger deficits than before, all to give big tax breaks to the wealthy." "Donald Trump has made clear that he'll stop at nothing to get his way," the governor charged. "I'm not about to stand by and let him tear down all we're building in Illinois." Pritzker, who started several of his own venture capital and investment startups before running for office, touted that "we don't just talk about problems. In Illinois, we solve them." In another jab at Trump, Pritzker said, "We know government ought to stand up for working families and be a force for good, not a weapon of revenge." In his video, the governor touted that during his two terms in office, "we've balanced seven straight budgets and got nine credit upgrades. We raised the minimum wage, capped the cost of insulin, banned assault weapons, protected abortion rights, and eliminated the state grocery tax, lowered prescription drug costs and added tens of thousands of jobs." However, the Republican Governors Association (RGA) does not see it that way. "People are fleeing Illinois by the hundreds of thousands and Illinois families continue to suffer the consequences of JB Pritzker's abject record of failure at home while he spends his time on a national vanity project trying to further his own political career," RGA Rapid Response Director Kollin Crompton said in a statement to Fox News. Crompton also charged that "opportunities for working Illinois families are in the garbage, criminal illegal immigrants are protected over law-abiding citizens, and Pritzker's tax hikes are destroying family budgets." Illinois, which is the nation's sixth most populous state, does not have term limits for statewide officials. However, there has not been a three-term governor in the state in more than three decades, since GOP Gov. Jim Thompson won four terms as governor in the 1970s and 1980s. Pritzker is seen as a potential contender for the Democrats' 2028 presidential nomination – and the launch of his 2026 gubernatorial re-election campaign is not expected to derail him from potentially running for the White House. He was a high-profile campaign surrogate in the 2024 cycle on behalf of former President Joe Biden, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris after she replaced Biden as the Democratic Party's nominee last summer. Those efforts brought Pritzker to Nevada, a general election battleground state and an early-voting Democratic presidential primary state, and New Hampshire, which for a century has held the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Additionally, Pritzker's return to New Hampshire this spring to headline a major state Democratic Party fundraising dinner sparked more speculation about a possible 2028 presidential run.
CNN
a day ago
- Business
- CNN
JB Pritzker to seek third term as Illinois governor amid 2028 speculation
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker announced Thursday that he would run for a third term in 2026, amid speculation over his ambitions for the 2028 presidential race, with the release of a campaign launch video featuring sharp criticism of President Donald Trump. 'Donald Trump's made clear he'll stop at nothing to get his way. I'm not about to stand by and let him tear down all we're building in Illinois,' Pritzker says, appearing at the geographic center-point of the state. In the video, Pritzker touts his accomplishments as governor over his first two terms, highlighting successful state budgets, minimum wage increases, gun safety efforts, and job growth. Pritzker also echoes the focus of many Democratic candidates on key issues including affordability and abortion rights. And the billionaire governor, among several high-profile potential contenders for his party's 2028 presidential nomination, presents himself as an effective bulwark against the Trump administration. 'Government ought to stand up for working families and be a force for good, not a weapon of revenge. Donald Trump's made clear he'll stop at nothing to get his way. I'm not about to stand by and let him tear down all we're building in Illinois,' Pritzker says, just ahead of his official declaration that 'I'm running for reelection.' Pritzker is set to formally kick off his reelection campaign with an event in Chicago later Thursday. In the aftermath of Democrats' losses in 2024, Pritzker has emerged as one of several aspiring leaders for a party still searching for a path back to power. Already the two-term governor of the nation's sixth-most populous state, Pritzker – an heir to a historic family fortune – has leveraged his wealth and influence to raise his profile while the party rebuilds. He donated $1.5 million to the Wisconsin Democratic Party earlier this year for the blockbuster fight over a state Supreme Court seat, clashing with a rival billionaire, Elon Musk, in a significant victory for liberals. And he's adopted a confrontational approach to the Trump administration while encouraging other Democrats to follow suit. At a Capitol Hill hearing earlier this month, Pritzker rebuked the Trump administration over its immigration enforcement actions and the deployment of military assets to respond to protests in Los Angeles. 'We will not participate in abuses of power. We will not violate court orders. We will not ignore the Constitution. We will not defy the Supreme Court. We will not take away people's rights to peacefully protest,' Pritzker said. 'We also respect and expect this administration to respect the traditions and legal precedents that dictate how and when our National Guard and military are deployed.' Pritzker also traveled in April to the traditional early presidential primary state of New Hampshire, further stoking speculation about his ambitions for 2028 while exhorting his party to buck up for the fight against the second Trump administration. 'The reckoning,' he told a room full of revved up Democrats, 'is here.' In a CNN interview during his visit to the state, Pritzker detailed his feelings about the politics of the moment. 'There is certain momentum where people are now feeling like – well, the politicians are feeling like, 'Oh there's a political reason why I should now speak out and be a fighter.' I don't care why you're joining the fight at this point, we just need everybody out there, right?' he said. 'And then there are others who are joining the fight because they're coming to a real realization that, 'This is much worse than I thought it would be and it's getting worse.' And then I look at some of the people who have capitulated and I wonder in the end, is this how you want people to think of you?' CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere contributed to this report.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump critic JB Pritzker expected to launch Democratic re-election bid for third term as Illinois governor
Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to announce on Thursday that he'll seek a third four-year term steering the blue Midwestern state, a source with knowledge confirmed to Fox News. The billionaire governor, a member of the Pritzker family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain and who has started several of his own venture capital and investment startups, is expected to make his announcement in Chicago before traveling to Springfield, Illinois' capital city. Illinois, which is the nation's sixth most populous state, does not have term limits for statewide officials. However, there has not been a three-term governor in the state in over three decades, since GOP Gov. Jim Thompson won four terms as governor in the 1970s and 1980s. Pritzker has become one of his Democratic Party's most vocal critics of the sweeping and controversial moves by President Donald Trump during the opening months of his second tour in the White House. "We've got to be ready for the fight," Pritzker said in an interview with Fox News Digital in April. The 60-year-old governor argued that the nation is "in a constitutional crisis" and that "we have too many people who are ill-affected by the policies of the Trump administration." Pritzker, who has taken steps to "Trump-proof" his solidly blue state, told reporters earlier this year, "You come for my people, you come through me." Pritzker is seen as a potential contender for the Democrats' 2028 presidential nomination – and the launch of his 2026 gubernatorial re-election campaign is not expected to derail him from potentially running for the White House. He was a high-profile campaign surrogate in the 2024 cycle on behalf of former President Joe Biden, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris after she replaced Biden as the Democratic Party's nominee last summer. Those efforts brought Pritzker to Nevada, a general election battleground state and an early-voting Democratic presidential primary state, and New Hampshire, which for a century has held the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. Additionally, Pritzker's return to New Hampshire this spring, to headline a major state Democratic Party fundraising dinner, sparked more speculation about a possible 2028 presidential run.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- New York Times
JB Pritzker to Seek Third Term as Illinois Governor
Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois is expected this week to announce a bid for re-election in 2026, according to two people close to his campaign. The announcement, expected to come on Thursday, opens the chance that Mr. Pritzker will have a third term in the governor's office while not ruling out the possibility of a presidential run in 2028. The two people who described the plans asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak about it publicly. Mr. Pritzker, 60, a Democrat and billionaire hotel heir, has emerged as one of the most vocal national figures on the left since President Trump returned to office, sparring with Mr. Trump on policy and urging fellow Democrats to fight back against his agenda. 'It's time to fight everywhere and all at once,' he told a group of Democrats in the early presidential primary state of New Hampshire this spring. 'Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace.' In Illinois, the sixth most-populous state in the country, Mr. Pritzker has pushed policies to the left, expanding abortion rights, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour and signing into law the legalization of recreational marijuana. He has been a vocal supporter of sanctuary policies for immigrants, including a state law that was signed by his predecessor, Bruce Rauner, a Republican. Mr. Pritzker signed legislation aimed at strengthening rights for residents who are undocumented or immigrants, part of a promise to make Illinois a 'firewall' against Mr. Trump's deportation efforts. Earlier this month, Mr. Pritzker testified on immigration policy in Washington before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, saying that Illinois would 'not participate in abuses of power' at the behest of federal immigration officials. In 2023, Mr. Pritzker founded Think Big America, a nonprofit that supports abortion rights. He has recruited companies to the state and helped build investments in quantum computing, but has had mixed success with some corporate interests, who have chafed at the state's high taxes, fiscal instability and deep pension problems. Mr. Pritzker has also struggled to win over rural downstate residents, many of whom see him as a wealthy, liberal Chicagoan who is out of step with their concerns. Mr. Pritzker will not have to depend on donors to power a third campaign. He is able to largely self-fund his runs for office with his family fortune. He spent $350 million on his first two campaigns, the Chicago Tribune reported. He easily won a second term in 2022 with 55 percent of the vote. Illinois governors rarely serve more than one or two terms: The last governor to be elected to a third term was James R. Thompson, a Republican who held the job from 1977 to 1991.
