Democratic darling JB Pritzker has a record that will repel blue-collar Trump voters | Opinion
Billionaire Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is enjoying a moment in the soft-focus sunlight of rising national polls and fawning press. He’s the antidote to Donald Trump for Democrats. That’s a mirage.
Pritzker, the prep school scion of the family that founded Hyatt Hotels, would be a disastrous choice for a party trying to turn the page on Trump’s populism.
Like Trump himself, the prairie liberal did little to earn his wealth, inheriting his name and billions from a family that has been among America’s wealthiest since Forbes began keeping track.
In suspiciously familiar territory, The Chicago Tribune caught him in lies about overseas accounts and businesses the governor says were set up by his grandfather. Democratic opponents have alleged they were put in place and expanded to “avoid paying taxes.” Pritzker, like Trump, has been coy about releasing his full tax returns.
By all means, let’s go down this road again. Fight fire with fire, Democrats might say. But by the time 2028 rolls around, voters will be desperate for change, not looking for a slightly more rotund repeat with fewer bankruptcies.
If Democrats are looking to regain the blue-collar white and minority voters Trump peeled away from their coalition on cultural and economic issues, hanging their hopes on a guy who presides over a Democrat-dominated state where Republicans are an embattled minority is a bad idea.
Pritzker proudly calls Illinois America’s “most progressive state.” That might sell well among the Democratic activist crowd, but it sure won’t fly with the voters Democrats are trying to bring back.
While Republicans have done much to alienate the middle with six-week abortion bans, Pritzker’s Illinois has responded with among the nation’s most liberal abortion laws, enshrining the right to third-trimester abortions along with more common procedures.
Illinois was the second state in the nation to bar localities from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When Americans voted in 2024 for a get tough policy on undocumented immigration, Pritzker’s Illinois made itself a sanctuary state.
Pritzker has presided over years of expanding state government and rising state taxes. While Illinois has the highest property taxes in the nation and Pritzker promised to lower them, he hasn’t done enough to make them actually go down.
High taxes would be easier to pay if Illinois had a booming economy, but it has among the highest unemployment rates in the country at 4.8%. By some measures, employment in the state has been shrinking in recent years as the American economy has grown.
One reason for that is that taxpayers are voting with their feet. Like California, another aspirant for the progressive title, Illinois is losing population according to the IRS, and with it, state revenue. Moving companies transport their trailers and trucks into the state in bulk to deal with the one-way moves.
Taxpayers aren’t the only ones to bail on Pritzker’s progressivism. Tyson Foods, Caterpillar, Boeing and investment firms Citadel and Guggenheim Partners all joined the exodus along with thousands of good paying jobs.
Just to rub it in, many went to red states with lower taxes and less regulation. After a century based in Illinois, Caterpillar went to Texas while Guggenheim headed to Florida.
I could go on and on. Moody’s gives Illinois the worst credit rating of any state. Chicago’s violence is unabated under his tenure. Illinois has the most underfunded pension system of any state. The state is all in on extreme pro-transgender policies rejected by moderate voters.
Pritzker has the billions to match Republican war chests and has already proven he will self-fund his campaigns to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, but a governor has to have a record that will sell in the purple places to win the presidency.
Pritzker may sound bold on the stump in New Hampshire and provide leadership to Democrats looking for their voice in opposition to Trump, but this guy is not the answer to populism. The dismal record of his progressivism is what caused so many Democratic voters to look to Trump in the first place.
This story was originally published May 7, 2025 at 7:02 AM with the headline "Democratic darling JB Pritzker has a record that will repel blue-collar Trump voters | Opinion."
