Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is all but running for president in 2028, and like many Democratic hopefuls in a crowded field, he’s refusing to pick a side.
To his Left are candidates pledging to stop all aid to Israel and establish a moratorium on AI data centers. To his Right are California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Ambassador Rahm Emanuel running on the social issues that helped re-elect President Donald Trump.
Pritzker resides in Democratic no man’s land: he’s trying to borrow from every available Democratic lane without fully committing to any of them. His track record in Illinois is not too exciting either.
Winning the nomination in a crowded field will require staying in character and inspiring emotions — love or hate — in voters. That will be challenging given the options he has and who he’s up against:
Anti-Democrat Democrats
This group, headlined by Emanuel and Newsom, watched President Donald Trump’s highly successful ad, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” and acted accordingly.
“Democrats should ‘stop talking about bathrooms and locker rooms and start talking about the classroom,’” Emanuel told Politico. Newsom followed suit by criticizing transgender youth in girls sports and urging Democrats to “be more normal.”
The anti-Democrat Democrats view the party as a toxic combination of social baggage that must be left behind. Pritzker is less sure.
“I’m not a big believer of going after one piece of the party or another piece of the party,” he said. He hasn’t backed down on transgender rights either, promising to sign a bill mandating insurers licensed in Illinois to cover at least six months worth of hormone prescriptions.
While he is angry and willing to criticize the Harris campaign — but not the candidate — Pritzker is still a leading voice for the National Democratic Party on controversial social issues. He represents a continuation more so than a change.
Good Government Democrats
As a governor himself, Pritzker should feel at home alongside fellow Govs. Josh Shapiro and Andy Beshear, as well as former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, that make up this group. But the Illinois economic landscape tells a different story.
Illinois has the nation’s highest combined state and local tax rate, combined with one of the nation’s highest debt totals — $38,000 per individual taxpayer as of 2024, according to the Illinois Policy Institute. That’s a hard sell nationally to an electorate weary of rising debt and sky-high prices.
And, while Shapiro governs a swing state and Beshear a conservative one, Pritzker sits atop a solidly blue state with an almost two-to-one ratio of registered Democrats to Republicans. A state in which four of the last ten governors served jail time. Appearing on the wiretap of one of those jailbird governors doesn’t help either …
Pritzker can highlight some Left-wing victories in Illinois, like passing a $15 minimum wage, but he will be burdened nationally by Illinois’ high tax, heavy debt, one-party politics, as well as its history of corruption and crime. That’s a harder good-government pitch than Shapiro, Beshear, or Buttigieg’s.
New Progressive Democrats
Lastly, there are the progressives, led by Rep. Ro Khanna, charting a new way forward. They call for ending aid to Israel, prosecuting the “Epstein Class” and instituting major economic reforms such as Khanna’s Marshall Plan for America.
Khanna and his allies are also endorsing a pair of Senate hopefuls, Graham Platner from Maine and Abdul El-Sayed from Michigan, who reject the party’s mainstream. Pritzker, despite being an avid Democratic donor who never shies away from influencing elections outside Illinois, has not endorsed either progressive.
Unlike Pritzker, the New Progressive are labeling Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide and investigating the Epstein Files instead of fending off accusations of being inside them. Perhaps Pritzker seemed more “progressive” in 2020, but the party now outflanks him on critical issues of crime and corruption.
Without a lane, Pritzker, a white billionaire, becomes the candidate who everybody likes enough, but too milquetoast to inspire passion to vote for.
History shows that former President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was an aberration. Winning, while refusing to embrace a specific faction of the party, was the unique result of a global pandemic combined with massive anti-Trump sentiment.
Former President Bill Clinton told the Democratic Leadership Council in 2002, “When people feel uncertain, they’d rather have someone strong and wrong than weak and right.” Strength, in today’s politics, means picking a lane and sticking to it.
Pritzker refuses: He wants to be angry at Democrats without hurting their feelings, good at governing without the track record to prove it, and a progressive who happens to be a billionaire political moderate. He also wants to be president.
But JB Pritzker will soon learn that he can’t have it all.
Jack Verrill is a Young Voices Contributor from Falmouth, Maine and Junior at the University of Michigan. He can be reached at [email protected] or on X @jack_verri11.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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