The day after Donald Trump won the presidency last November, two-term Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker issued a statement that said as much about his plans for the state’s future as his own political future.
“In 2017, I sought public office in large part because of the threat Donald Trump and his allies posed to Illinois,” he wrote, citing his successful first bid for governor in 2018. “I have helped enshrine into state law protections that uphold our common Illinois values. That work will continue, and it remains my North Star.”
With less than a year before the March 2026 primary and only four months before the period to gather candidacy petition signatures begins, Pritzker has yet to say whether he will seek a rare but not unprecedented third term as governor.
But given his professed “North Star,” his sharp criticisms of the second Trump administration amid the listlessness of national Democratic Party leadership and a potential bid for the presidency in 2028, those who know and are close to the 60-year-old Pritzker say they expect him to seek reelection, with an announcement possibly coming after the legislature adjourns at the end of May.
Worth an estimated $3.7 billion, according to Forbes, and having spent $350 million to self-fund his two previous campaigns for governor, the heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune finds himself with few political obstacles in the way of another run.
The man who controls and funds the state’s Democratic Party apparatus and has used his money to help numerous candidates and initiatives faces no intraparty challenge and so far has seen no significant, well-financed opposition surface from a moribund Illinois Republican Party.
That has allowed Pritzker to seek an outsize role in national Democratic politics in the early days of Trump 2.0. Seeking to fill a vacuum within a party struggling to respond to Trump and his efforts to dismantle the federal government, Pritzker has offered a message that attempts to recapture middle-class voters who abandoned the party in the 2024 elections.
Running for another term as governor also would provide Pritzker a dual track toward a presumptive look at a White House bid. And a victory in the sixth-largest state would continue to provide him a credible, high-profile platform from which to assail the actions of the Trump administration nationally in the run-up to the 2028 presidential election.
Just last Tuesday, speaking to the progressive Center for American Progress, or CAP, in Washington, Pritzker acknowledged that, as a Democratic governor, his ability to fight Trump’s downsizing initiatives in a GOP-dominated Washington was limited. But he also gave some insight into his mindset on why serving as governor during the second Trump era was important to Democrats.
“The pushback that I can offer is, first, do the best I can to run a state that is really all about working people and the most vulnerable. But second, it’s I’ve got a bully pulpit,” Pritzker said.
“The bully pulpit that I get as governor gives me the opportunity at least to speak to what I think that our common American values are, and we are the center of the country, the heart of the country,” Pritzker said.
“In the state of Illinois, we also have a state that is most reflective of the population of the entire United States,” he said. “So it gives me that opportunity to talk about what I think is happening in the country and the dangers that I think we’re facing.”
But those dangers that Pritzker warns about — including the prospect of dealing with massive federal spending cuts affecting health care for the poor, education, housing, agriculture and grants to other areas of government — present hazards for someone trying to both carry out their duties as governor and pursue a national agenda.
“There are advantages and there are risks to running again — if his thought is to run for president,” said David Axelrod, a senior political consultant for CNN who was a senior political adviser to President Barack Obama.
“The question for him really is, being governor of a state is a hard job, and it’s likely to get harder these next few years and into the next term. Third terms have historically been challenging for governors,” said Axelrod, who has long served as a consultant on Democratic campaigns in Illinois and across the nation. “Given, you know, who he is and the resources he has and so on, is there more wisdom in spending two years traveling the country unfettered by the responsibilities of the governorship and the potential liabilities of the governorship?”
With his wealth, Pritzker has the resources to build a presidential campaign without the responsibilities of the governor’s office. But there is the example of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a billionaire whose 2020 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination lasted less than five months after he spent over $500 million of his own money.
Illinois does not have term limits for governor, but the only person to serve more than two four-year terms is the late Republican Gov. James R. Thompson. Thompson was the state’s longest-serving governor, holding the office for 14 years, from 1977 to 1991, including an initial two-year term that shifted the election of statewide officers to the nonpresidential midterm election. But in winning his third term in 1982, Thompson very narrowly defeated the late former U.S. Sen. Adlai E. Stevenson III by 5,074 votes, the closest governor’s race in Illinois history.
Like Pritzker, Thompson had presidential ambitions and also was courted as a potential vice presidential contender, though he took himself out of consideration. Pritzker has noted that his vetting to appear on the short list of vice presidential running mates for 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris was an indication of the belief that he had the qualifications to do the job of president.
But Pritzker has demurred on the question of his presidential ambitions, even as he has not publicly discussed his thoughts on a third gubernatorial term.
In August, speaking at the first Illinois delegation breakfast of the Democratic National Convention, Pritzker jokingly referred to his wife, MK, as his term limiter.
“I’m not suggesting that I want to try to beat Jim Thompson’s 14-year record,” Pritzker said. “My wife’s not here, and I don’t want anybody talking to her about this, but she is my term limit, so if all of you want to talk to her and convince her one way or another, by the way, you’re welcome to do that.”
Yet by looking at Pritzker’s collective comments since Trump’s Nov. 5 victory, as well as his travel and media schedule, it has become clear the Illinois governor relishes attacking the president and presidential adviser Elon Musk. He points to the state as leading the resistance in urging Democrats to focus their messaging on working families through such issues as increasing the federal minimum wage.
To Pritzker, Musk is “President Musk” and Musk’s associates in his Department of Government Efficiency are “DOGE-bags.”
“The meme lords and the minions in the White House conceive of themselves as kings and nobles who have the divine right to order the world in a way that best suits them and their fellow kleptocrats,” he said. “People’s lives are a game to them.”
“There’s no grand master strategy to improve the lives of everyday Americans. This is true, villainous cruelty by a few idiots who are trying to figure out how to pull off the scam of their lives. They’re armed with the power of the presidency, and their sights are aimed on working people, many of whom voted for them, never imagining what this would turn out to be. Here we are. Things are bad, and they’re getting worse,” he told CAP.
“This is all cruel, incompetent, recklessness, and 60 days in, the signs are there. It’s already pissing off everyday Americans,” he said.
With polls showing voter favorability for Democrats at record lows, Pritzker said, “If we want to regain the trust of the voters that we stand for, Democrats have to deliver. For sure, we have to call out the BS that Republicans have been selling, but meanwhile, Democrats have to make people’s lives better.”
Contending that “the challenges that people are facing at the kitchen table are the very challenges that the Democratic Party is best at addressing,” Pritzker questioned, “Why are we not all screaming about the $7.25 (federal) minimum wage in this country?” and noted that Illinois’ minimum wage increased to $15 an hour Jan. 1.
Pritzker’s efforts to expand his national footprint include the creation of his Think Big America organization in October 2023 that helped fund abortion-rights ballot initiatives across the country. Since Trump’s victory, he’s appeared nationally on CNN, MSNBC, numerous podcasts, ABC’s “Good Morning America 3” and “The View” and has delivered speeches to Democratic advocacy groups. He’s also set to deliver the keynote address at the largest fundraiser for New Hampshire Democrats on April 27, though the state no longer plays as significant a role in the presidential primary process.
But there’s also the “bully pulpit” at home, where last week he conducted a three-day “Standing up for Illinois” tour of the state to lash out at Trump’s actions involving farmers, seniors and efforts to rebuild the state’s infrastructure.
“They hate that we’re succeeding in Illinois. They just hate it. It drives them absolutely crazy, and I love that it does,” Pritzker said of the Trump administration before a gathering of the Illinois Education Association earlier this month.
Axelrod said Pritzker’s aggressiveness on the stump “is something that undoubtedly will win him some followers” and is “appreciated by Democrats who are looking for someone to carry the fight.”
“He’s also been very supportive of Democratic causes and candidates around the country, and that always wins you friends,” he said. That includes a $500,000 donation in the battle over Democrats keeping a majority in a Wisconsin state Supreme Court race that has seen Musk invest millions of dollars into the Republican.
But Axelrod cautioned any national aspirations for Pritzker by questioning “what the country’s attitude toward billionaires is going to be in 2028? Elon Musk is not helping the brand.”
Still, he said, “there are billionaires, and there are billionaires,” and Pritzker’s willingness to be taxed at a higher rate based on his wealth stands in contrast to Musk and Trump allies who are “trying to cut everything that is meaningful to everyday people in order to pay for a larger tax cut” for themselves.
Among those who think Pritzker will seek reelection, there’s the belief that not only does a gubernatorial platform assist in any national ambitions, but it would also give him the opportunity to see some of his initiatives as governor come to fruition — most notably efforts to make the state a leader in emerging technology and a global center for quantum computing.
For his second-term reelection bid, Pritzker didn’t announce his candidacy until July 19, 2021, for a June 28, 2022, primary — an election delayed by the pandemic.
Looking ahead to 2026, Pritzker has not made a significant contribution to his political fund since dropping $13 million into it last August. He began this year with more than $4.1 million in his campaign bank account after spending $8.1 million in the final quarter of the 2024 general election period.
Regardless of his decision, Pritzker will be the longest-serving Democratic governor in Illinois history at the end of his second term. Three other Democratic governors were elected to two terms, but none of them finished them.
Henry Horner died in office. Otto Kerner Jr. quit to become a federal judge. And Rod Blagojevich was impeached and removed from office before being convicted and imprisoned on federal corruption charges. Despite being pardoned by Trump, Blagojevich is ineligible to hold any public office in the state.
Pritzker said he still loves the job of governor, though he acknowledges “it’s become harder,” noting that with Trump, “the challenge is meaningful.”
“Look, whatever it is that I’m doing a year from now — or whatever announcements get made over the next bunch of months — I will be in this fight,” he told reporters earlier this month. “I have always been, as you know, an active participant in issues that matter to me. And the Trump presidency is attacking virtually everything that I believe in. So whether I’m in office or I’m not in office, or what office I am serving in, I will always be in this fight.”
