2 days ago
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.
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