Gov. JB Pritzker joked on Monday that first lady MK Pritzker will be the one deciding whether he’ll run for a third term.
It’s a question that’s been hurled at the Democratic governor repeatedly since Vice President Kamala Harris chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, leaving Pritzker’s political future a bit more flexible.
“It seems crazy, but it’s true that when I serve out just the end of this second term, I will be the longest-serving Democratic governor in the history of Illinois,” Pritzker said Monday at the week’s first Illinois delegation breakfast. “I’m not suggesting that I want to try to beat Jim Thompson’s 14-year record."
"My wife’s not here. 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, convince her one way or another, by the way, you’re welcome to do that.”
Thompson, a Republican, served as governor from 1977-91. There are no term limits in the state.
Top Illinois Democrats, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, are urging him to keep running.
Pritzker, who along with Duckworth and former Mayor Lori Lightfoot, helped secure Chicago’s bid for the convention, welcomed delegates and elected officials at the Royal Sonesta Hotel — then he jetted off to the second of eight speaking roles at neighboring delegation breakfasts. Mayor Brandon Johnson did not attend the breakfast, with Welch blaming his busy schedule.
Welch said a third Pritzker term would mean “stability and continued progress.”
“We would continue to move Illinois forward,” the Hillside Democrat said. “I have had an opportunity to lobby his wife a few times and say, ‘Hey, I’d love for him to go for a third term.’ I think I got a smile and a wink and an OK that he could do that.
“I’m certainly hoping that he continues to be our governor,” Welch said.
Duckworth agreed, saying, “We've had six balanced budgets and nine credit upgrades under this governor. … He's been a real partner to me.”
Duckworth praised Pritzker for pushing state legislation making Illinois “a bastion for reproductive health care, for raising the minimum wage and other stuff that we've done for working families. So I urge him to run again.”
Earlier this month, Pritzker would not definitively say whether he was considering a third run for governor in 2026 or would consider taking over for Walz as chair of the Democratic Governors Association should the ticket win.
“At the moment, I’m just focused on the job that I’ve got,” he said on Aug. 6. He also said that he has not contemplated a Cabinet position should Democrats win.
For now, Pritzker said he’ll help to boost Harris and Walz in Midwest battleground states. He’s also focusing efforts on his nonprofit Think Big America, which is helping Democrats win abortion rights ballot initiatives in red states.
The speculation over Pritzker’s future followed the Illinois DNC delegation’s first breakfast program of the week, which featured New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker as keynote speaker. However, the show was stolen by retired AFL-CIO president Terry O’Sullivan, who brought delegates to their feet while tearing into former President Donald Trump.
“This sexist, racist, draft-dodging, lying son of a b—-- has got to go once and for all,” O’Sullivan said to raucous applause. “We not only have to win, we have to kick his ass all the way back to Mar-a-Lago, put a fork in him and end Donald Trump's presence in our country, in our world, brothers and sisters.”
O’Sullivan joked that he’s encouraging his daughter to become a brain surgeon “because there's plenty of a——-s in our country that need a lobotomy that support Donald Trump.”
“We are the great state of Illinois, and it will be your spark that lights the fire that leads to Kamala Harris being our president of the United States,” O’Sullivan said.
Booker commended Illinois Democrats for “hosting one hell of a party,” but looked ahead to the home stretch of the election.
“All of us in this room drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty that we didn't dig. All of us in this room sit before banquet tables prepared for us by our ancestors,” Booker said. “But now it's our turn on history’s stage right. Now it's our turn to pick up the pen of history and let us tell a story that over the next 80 days, that we did what it took. We rose to the challenge.”
