Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to announce bid for rare third term as governor

Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is expected to announce on Thursday that he’ll seek a third four-year term steering the blue Midwestern state, a source with knowledge confirmed to Fox News.

The billionaire governor, a member of the Pritzker family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain and who has started several of his own venture capital and investment startups, is expected to make his announcement in Chicago before traveling to Springfield, Illinois’ capital city.

Illinois, which is the nation’s sixth most populous state, does not have term limits for statewide officials. However, there has not been a three-term governor in the state in over three decades, since GOP Gov. Jim Thompson won four terms as governor in the 1970s and 1980s.

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Pritzker has become one of his Democratic Party’s most vocal critics of the sweeping and controversial moves by President Donald Trump during the opening months of his second tour in the White House.

“We’ve got to be ready for the fight,” Pritzker said in an interview with Fox News Digital in April.

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The 60-year-old governor argued that the nation is “in a constitutional crisis” and that “we have too many people who are ill-affected by the policies of the Trump administration.”

Pritzker, who has taken steps to “Trump-proof” his solidly blue state, told reporters earlier this year, “You come for my people, you come through me.”

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Pritzker is seen as a potential contender for the Democrats’ 2028 presidential nomination – and the launch of his 2026 gubernatorial re-election campaign is not expected to derail him from potentially running for the White House.

He was a high-profile campaign surrogate in the 2024 cycle on behalf of former President Joe Biden, as well as former Vice President Kamala Harris after she replaced Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee last summer. 

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Those efforts brought Pritzker to Nevada, a general election battleground state and an early-voting Democratic presidential primary state, and New Hampshire, which for a century has held the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.

Additionally, Pritzker’s return to New Hampshire this spring, to headline a major state Democratic Party fundraising dinner, sparked more speculation about a possible 2028 presidential run.