Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was always on a glide path to his third Democratic nomination for governor ever since he announced he would seek re-election. Now, he knows the Republican he’ll face in November.
With Darren Bailey winning the Republican primary, NBC News projects, Pritzker will have a familiar battle. The two squared off in 2022, when Pritzker handily defeated Bailey, a downstate Republican.
Illinois has proven to be difficult terrain for Republicans in recent years, both statewide and in local legislative districts. Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers of the Legislature to go with Pritzker’s eight-year hold on the governorship.
What distinguishes Pritzker’s third campaign to be Illinois’ top executive is that he has higher aspirations. It’s an open secret that Pritzker, a onetime businessman and heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, is considering a 2028 White House run. That opens him up to criticism from a Republican opponent who could argue he isn’t really invested in the state. If he is re-elected, Pritzker would begin his new term in 2027, coinciding with an intensive presidential campaign year, should he take that route.
Pritzker has risen as a national figure in recent years, setting himself up as a foil to President Donald Trump and his administration’s policies. That includes when the Department of Homeland Security ran a monthslong immigration enforcement operation in Illinois, aggressively carrying out arrests and dispensing chemical agents in neighborhoods across the Chicago area.
Pritzker repeatedly asked residents to use their phones to document any immigration enforcement activity and potential abuses by federal officers, and he named a panel, the Illinois Accountability Commission, led by a federal judge, to hold hearings and make a record of potential constitutional violations by federal officers during the operations.
Pritzker has repeatedly said the Trump administration will have to pay a price for any abuses in its tenure. Most recently, he made the argument when Kristi Noem was ousted as homeland security secretary.
“Just because you’re gone don’t think you just get to walk away,” Pritzker said in a video statement addressing Noem. “I can guarantee you you will still be held accountable.”
Pritzker, a billionaire, isn’t afraid to tap his fortune for political reasons, including to fund his own campaigns. He recently poured money into a super PAC backing his lieutenant governor, Juliana Stratton, for the Senate. The group, Illinois Future Fund, has spent $14.8 million on ads supporting Stratton and attacking a top opponent, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Among the group’s ads was a spot touting Pritzker’s endorsement of Stratton, featuring video of Pritzker praising her.
Pritzker’s popularity has held steady in public polling since he first won office in 2018, when he defeated Republican Bruce Rauner. Since then, he launched — but lost — a bid to overhaul the state’s income tax structure to shift more of the burden onto wealthier residents. He has also signed a raft of legislation, from gun laws aimed at protecting victims of domestic violence to a bill raising the state’s minimum wage from $8.25 an hour in 2019 to $15 an hour last year.
Perhaps the most controversial Pritzker initiative was his signing the SAFE-T Act, which made Illinois the first state to eliminate cash bail statewide. Republicans have repeatedly pointed to the elimination of cash bail as a danger to the community.
The new system no longer allows a judge to hold someone in jail because of money. Judges can detain people who they deem are flight risks or threats to public safety.
