Gov. JB Pritzker was Biden's man in the Midwest. Where's that leave him with VP Harris?

COLUMBUS, Ohio ― Democrats were aghast. And Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was in the eye of the storm.

President Joe Biden’s appalling debate performance in June had cast serious doubt on his ability to beat his Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump.

The fellow billionaire businessman turned politician was on the precipice of returning to power at a uniquely vulnerable time in the country, Pritzker assessed.

“So here we sit, a few months out from the election, struggling with the answer to a profound question: How do we save ourselves?” Pritzker asked the Ohio Democratic Party faithful at their annual gathering on a sticky July afternoon.

Democrats need to shake off their anxiety, he implored.

“If we stop worrying about whether they might call us woke and instead worry about whether we're actually waking people up,” he continued, “if we stopped being so damned afraid of a little chaos and just embraced it as a path from here to there, we will win.”

Pritzker’s role for the Biden-Harris campaign had been fairly clear cut. He’d spent the past year trying to win back discouraged Democrats, fed-up blue-collar workers and disillusioned independents.

He campaigned for Biden in Iowa at a time when the president, who’d booted the state from Democrats’ early primary window, wasn’t especially popular. From centrally located Illinois, the battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin were easy hops. He formed an abortion rights group, which gave him cover to expand his outreach to Western and Southern states.

Pritzker flexed his financial acumen and Rolodex, bundling for Biden and teasing a possible presidential bid along the way. His efforts were rewarded. Chicago would host the next Democratic National Convention, giving Pritzker an even bigger platform to showcase his record in office.

But the two-term governor and Biden campaign adviser was in limbo. Democrats were paralyzed. Cash was drying up. “A lot of people were, I think, almost assuming that there was no way we could win this election,” former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said. Pritzker “encouraged us to move beyond that.”

Prescient as his remarks were, Pritzker had little sense of the chaos that would unfurl.

Within hours, Trump would be shot at a campaign rally. A week later, a COVID-stricken Biden would quit the Democratic ticket. The 2024 campaign upended.

Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor. The shocking reversal gave Democrats an opening to set aside their differences and unite around a new candidate.

“It’s turned out that people have put their anxiety away, and now, we have a great candidate and people are pulling together,” Pritzker said during an interview in Chicago.

Yet, for the first time since he ran for governor in 2017, Pritzker was confronted with questions about his political future.

And he had less than a month to sort it out and put on a presidential nominating convention.

Biden’s man in the Midwest

It did not take much convincing to get Pritzker onboard.

He’d attended his first Democratic National Convention in San Francisco in the summer of 1984, at age 19, as a volunteer for Walter Mondale’s campaign. Pritzker was a bit of a junkie when it came to party conventions.

“I called JB and said, ‘Hey, I've got a crazy idea. What do you think of this?’” recalled Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a co-chair of Biden’s –and now Harris’ – campaign. “He said, ‘Absolutely.’”

Chicago had hosted Democratic conventions nearly a dozen times before, most recently in 1996, when former President Bill Clinton was up for reelection, and in 1968, when activists protesting the Vietnam War were involved in televised skirmishes with the police. This time would be different, party officials insisted.

Yet, there were hurdles from the start. The bid required the city to put forward an irrevocable letter of credit of $30 million, in case the host committee fell short of its nearly $85 million obligation – a record-breaking sum – and convince party officials to recommend Chicago over Atlanta, Houston and New York.

The heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune and a prolific Democratic fundraiser, Pritzker knew the consequences all too well. He had given $1.2 million of his own money to support Hillary Clinton’s nominating convention in 2016, making him the Philadelphia gathering’s single largest contributor.

“JB is a very competitive guy, and there's no way that someone like him would allow anything to fail,” said Chris Korge, a rival bundler who has worked with Pritzker since the Illinois governor co-chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign.

Pritzker wined-and-dined the search committee at his Chicago mansion. He had comedian and "Saturday Night Live" alum Jim Belushi perform. During their walkthrough of the United Center, committee members witnessed a test balloon drop.

“They just spared no expense,” said Korge, the Democratic National Committee's finance director and chair of the Biden-turned-Harris Victory Fund.

Other cities put on a good show: Personalized Hawks jerseys in Atlanta. A performance by Broadway singers in New York. But from a policy standpoint alone, Democrats argued, Illinois was a no-brainer.

Democrats hold every major statewide office and have supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature. Pritzker championed initiatives to get the state to 40% renewable energy by 2030 and make Illinois a safe haven for out-of-state patients seeking reproductive and gender-affirming care.

His first year in office, he signed legislation to boost the minimum wage. Illinois banned assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in 2023 after the Highland Park shooting.

“He's a closer," said Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill., senior adviser to Pritzker at the beginning of his first term. "And when I see people want to leave that table, he has an ability to bring them back.”

There was just one last person who Pritzker had to convince: Biden.

“Every time I saw the president, whether he was coming here, or I was going to Washington, D.C., almost the first thing I would say, after saying, ‘Good to see you, Mr. President,’ was, ‘We’re going to have the convention in Chicago, right?’” Pritzker said.

The all-out campaign worked. Biden personally called Pritzker to tell him the convention would take place in Chicago.

Except by the following August, it would be Harris, and not Biden, accepting the nomination. And Pritzker was in the hot seat again.

A sudden shake-up in the race

Pritzker had his first brush with Harris when he was running for governor. Harris was California’s newest U.S. senator, and she was calling to offer her support.

Although his family hails from Chicago, Pritzker, who is 59 like Harris, was born near Palo Alto, California.

His father, Donald, had moved the family out West to run Hyatt House. The rapid expansion of the hotel chain sparked the Pritzker dynasty.

Pritzker’s pedigree includes Georgetown, Duke and Northwestern. After settling in Chicago, he partnered with brother Tony to start an asset management firm. Their older sister Penny – who later became Commerce secretary to President Barack Obama – helped grow the family business.

He expanded his inheritance, achieving an estimated $3.5 billion net worth, according to Forbes. Pritzker donated heavily to political causes.

His parents, both of whom died when he was young, believed deeply in social equity. Pritzker remembers marching with his mother, Sue, in support of progressive causes when he was a child.

“You either come by that by nature or nurture. I’m not sure which one visited itself upon me, but that’s how I grew up, that’s what I believe,” he said in an interview.

Pritzker had lost a congressional primary in the '90s. But after his front-row seat to Hillary Clinton’s losses, Pritzker wanted to be the one to seek higher office. He’d go on to win his governor’s race and his reelection battle.

Harris was reaching out again. This time, to coalesce support around her nascent presidential candidacy, before any of her political rivals could launch a bid.

Pritzker had remained noticeably quiet. He’d released a statement on Biden’s exit. It did not include an endorsement of Harris.

“I was getting calls from people, listening to them, what they had to say about where are we going,” Pritzker said. “How are we going to beat Donald Trump – and what is going to be the organization going forward in order for us to do that?”

In the lead-up to the Republican convention, Pritzker had stepped up his attacks on Trump. It got the ex-president’s attention. He insulted Pritzker’s weight and financial chops.

Pritzker punched back. "Gosh, the convicted felon insulting me and Milwaukee in the same week. Is it because we are both hosting conventions full of people who can't stand him?"

The Illinois governor knew he could not compete for the Democratic nomination against the nation’s first Black, Indian American and female vice president. “You think I just fell out of a coconut tree?” he said in a post on X the next morning, playing off a viral Harris meme.

It was “pretty obvious after just a few hours” Harris would be the nominee, Pritzker said in the interview.

Still, he wanted to hear from current and former party leaders. “And I wanted to hear from Kamala Harris,” he said.

After their call, Pritzker made his endorsement.

“We had about 120 days, I think, in order to prosecute a campaign against Donald Trump and win,” he said later. “You couldn’t have a big battle among a bunch of Democrats.”

An unassuming billionaire

Pritzker’s allies made a push for him to get the VP nod, instead.

Convention host committee chairman Michael Sacks and Chicago business leaders penned a letter to Harris advocating for him. So did Illinois-based abortion rights groups leaders.

Pritzker had worked through his nonprofit to advance ballot measures in Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Florida and other states where organizers are working to protect reproductive rights.

“This has been a lifelong priority of his,” said Sarah Garza Resnick, CEO of Personal PAC.

But could a billionaire vice president resonate with the American public?

“He's probably the most unassuming billionaire you would ever meet,” said Budzinski, an early aide to Pritzker on his gubernatorial campaign and a member of Harris' advisory board.

The profoundly formative grief over losing his father, who died of a heart attack when Pritzker was 7, and his mother, who suffered from alcoholism and died when he was 17, have shaped Pritzker’s politics.

“I knew people didn't expect the wealthy guy to have the most comprehensive and progressive agenda for the state of Illinois,” Pritzker told roughly 850 of the Ohio Democratic Party’s most active members in mid-July. “But you see, I love to be underestimated.”

Pritzker spent an almost unlimited amount of money on his first gubernatorial race – one of the most expensive in U.S. history.

“My friends thought that I was crazy to run for governor. Honestly, the Democratic Party was not exactly crying out for a white, Ukrainian-American, Jewish billionaire,” Pritzker said.

Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton says she met Pritzker when she was serving in the Illinois House of Representatives. They went to a restaurant in her district. She did not realize she was being recruited to be his running mate.

“I just thought, this is great, he actually came to my district to listen to me,” she said.

Pritzker has often disarmed people, getting them to look past his net worth.

“He’s the same person whether the cameras are on or the cameras are off,” Harris said in 2022 at a Chicago rally in support of their reelection bid.

After Sonya Massey, an unarmed Black woman with a mental health disorder, was shot and killed by a deputy at her home near the state capital of Springfield in July, Pritzker pushed the sheriff to resign.

He sat for nearly an hour with the family. He listened attentively during the meeting with Massey’s parents and children, and he pledged to work with the state attorney’s office on a transparent investigation, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said. The state passed a police reform bill in 2021 during his first term, and Pritzker told the family that if the legislature passed a new law in her name, he would sign it.

“Governor Pritzker wanted to try to let the community know that their cries were being heard, that they were not being swept under the rug in any kind of way,” said Crump, who represents the family and was present for the meeting.

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, traveled with Pritzker during his first campaign. He came away impressed. Durbin praised Pritzker’s approach to the pandemic, which included a stay-at-home order that Republicans sought to have ruled unconstitutional.

“At the same time, his credentials when it comes to the fiscal affairs of our state would pass any conservative test,” Durbin said.

Pritzker’s tenure has not been without its challenges. He came under scrutiny for travel to his horse farm in Wisconsin during the stay-at-home directive.

And when Texas’ Republican governor bussed migrants to Chicago, he invoked his great-grandfathers’ emigration from Ukraine in 1881. However, the state’s resources were soon overwhelmed. He sent Biden a letter blasting his administration for its lack of action.

Pritzker had established himself as Biden’s man in the Midwest. He could be that for Harris, too.

"Gov. Pritzker has delivered common sense wins for the people of Illinois, establishing himself and the state as national leaders in protecting women's reproductive freedom, empowering workers, and protecting our kids from gun violence," Harris campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak said in a statement. “He has been a key partner to President Biden and Vice President Harris as well as a champion for our candidates from coast to coast."

Residents of rural areas and big cities have common concerns: paying the bills, getting a better job, saving for retirement, affordable higher education and vocational training, Pritzker said.

“Democrats actually represent those values much more closely than Republicans do,” he said.

A new governor in town

Pritzker lost out on the veepstakes. And now, there was a new governor in town.

Harris picked another guy to be her running mate – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a former congressman, teacher, military veteran and high school football coach.

Pritzker sent a supportive statement, calling Walz a “proven leader who brings to public service the big heart and hard work of a Midwesterner,” and committed to working to elect him.

Now it was on Walz to bring home what Pritzker had spent years helping Democrats rebuild.

Pritzker had zeroed in on Wisconsin, giving $2.5 million in the lead-up to 2020 and donating $1 million to help liberals flip control of the Supreme Court in 2023.

Wisconsin had elected Trump and Biden and was likely to decide the White House again.

He bought billboards blaming “MAGA extremists” for the fall of Roe during Trump’s July nomination in Milwaukee. He headlined Wisconsin Democrats’ annual convention in early June.

“Delegates were buzzing for the week afterward about his speech, because he has a way of taking the fight to Trump and MAGA with a big friendly smile on his face,” Wisconsin Party Chair Ben Wikler said.

In Republican-leaning Ohio, he backed a measure protecting access to abortion. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s seat was a must-win in 2024, and with the right messaging, Pritzker thought Democrats could be competitive.

“I'm not gonna lie. He said something about being a billionaire, and I started to tune him out, because I'm not really his demographic,” said Emma Mirles-Jones, an attorney from Delaware, Ohio, who attended his July speech. “But then I found out that I am part of his demographic, and it was so fun to listen to what he had to say.”

Pritzker in limbo

Pritzker suggested he’d remain in Illinois until early 2027, at least, as news leaked he was not on Harris’ final list.

“I certainly will for the next two and a half years, because I have two and a half years left in this term,” he told USA TODAY.

Illinois law allows for Pritzker to run again. He joked that his wife MK would decide when enough is enough.

Pritzker said he wants to see programs such as universal pre-K come to fruition. He just announced a quantum computing campus, which he says will bring $20 billion of investment to the state. His dream? To make Illinois the Silicon Valley of new tech.

“Sometimes seeing through the things you started is an important endeavor,” Pritzker said.

His second term will end at the beginning of 2027: perfect timing for him to launch a presidential bid.

He has been putting the foundation in place for years, even as he competed for reelection in 2022. He’s made trips to Arizona and Nevada and stumped in Virginia in March ahead of Super Tuesday. He’s also made the rounds in early voting states such as New Hampshire. He'll be speaking at the state party's Labor Day breakfast.

Pritzker has also sought to boost his foreign policy creds. In June, he delivered the keynote address at a U.S.-Canada Summit. He hosted the Ukrainian PM in Chicago in April alongside his sister, Penny, who’s wrapping up a stint as Biden’s special economic advisor to Ukraine’s recovery.

He’s no stranger to what it would take to run, having served on the Biden and Harris national advisory boards. He backed Hillary Clinton in her 2008 battle with Obama and served as her campaign co-chair. (He later made up with the president; Obama endorsed Pritzker for governor.)

At the Ohio Family Reunion, as Biden was considering his options, Strickland, the former governor, nudged Pritzker to consider running in 2024. Pritzker was a donor to his campaign and had come to stay once in the governor’s mansion. They’d remained in touch over the years and reconnected at the event.

“And I just said to him, you know, depending on how things turn out, I hope you would remain open to assuming other responsibilities,” Strickland said. “He just kind of didn't take the bait.”

Democrats say they can’t see Pritzker forgoing a third-term to serve in a Harris administration. Although, he could always follow in the footsteps of his sister or take a job as an ambassador to Europe.

That is, if Harris wins.

Pritzker could still have a shot at the presidency in 2028, if Harris loses to Trump or does not seek the job again.

So where does that leave Pritzker? In limbo still. For now he just wants to show off convention memorabilia.

Francesca Chambers is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @fran_chambers.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As DNC heads to Illinois, Governor JB Pritzker flexes political might