#JB Pritzker

Current job: Governor of Illinois, serving since 2019

Age in November 2028: 63

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Illinois is no stranger to producing strong presidents, being the home state of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. Could it possibly deliver the answer to the post-Trump era in JB Pritzker? In recent years, he has been one of the Democratic party’s higher profile governors and surrogates, even getting considered for Harris’ running mate. He brings a number of interesting strengths but also some potential weaknesses.

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Strengths:

• Not afraid of Republicans: you guys saw that post-election clip where he said “you come for my people, you come through me”? That’s the kind of attitude Dems across the board will need for the next four years, and Pritzker has shown he’ll take the right to Trump and Republicans when needed. He’s also spent much of his own money on abortion initiatives across the country.

• he’s got a successful governorship under his belt. Since being elected, he’s worked on abortion rights, legalizing cannabis, increased funding for state universities, criminal justice reform, gun control, infrastructure, and increasing the state’s minimum wage. There’s plenty in his record that be used to appeal to both liberals and moderates.

• As a billionaire, he could self fund his entire campaign as needed. While Harris showed Dems can raise plenty of money, the real benefit is that this would allow for more money to go to downballot candidates in tight races that could need it more.

• Fairly charismatic speaker who can whip up a crowd as needed.

• Can excite the base without upsetting any party elders.

• Somewhat popular on social media. The Socialists for Pritzker account, Great Khan memes, etc.

Weaknesses:

• no obvious swing state advantage. Illinois has voted blue in presidential elections since the 90s, with no indication it will become a swing state in the near future.

• more of a concern is the city of Chicago. Similar to Newsom, Pritzker would get all of the blame for every negative perception of the city, primarily the crime. While Pritzker is not Mayor of Chicago, as governor of the state the city is in he’ll get fingers pointed at him by Vance and GOPers. However, Obama had even closer connections to Chicago and look how he did on the national stage.

• Governors of Illinois are infamous for corruption scandals, and Pritzker is no different. I won’t go into many details, but the biggest one involved a property tax break and removing toilets just to dodge taxes. Granted, this particular case was before he was elected, but it remains a potential bludgeon for Vance to use.

• To be blunt, he’s fat. In a perfect world that wouldn’t be a problem, but we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a vibes based world, just look at how internet memes viewed Old Man Biden.

• A billionaire at the head of the left wing party in the US could be awkward. Vance and the GOP would used it for hypocrisy accusations and trying to paint Dems as out of touch with the working and middle class. It could also cause problems with progressives and activists, but for the most part he’s avoided a lot of the anti-billionaire and “eat the rich” sentiment Bezos or Musk get - that Socialists for Pritzker account exists for a reason.

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My analysis: Pritzker was talked about as a potential Biden replacement or future candidate, and I can see it. He’s been an effective governor and can balance the wants and needs of both wings of the party. If Democrats want “Biden, but a more ambitious and populist salesman”, he’s a good bet. Conversely, he’s have Chicago and corruption as potential millstones, and it’s hard to give him a good electability argument. But he can excite the base without pissing off anyone important in the party, and that may well be the most important factor.

Welcome to the Political General Discussion Roundtable. Use this thread to discuss whatever is on your mind, or share anything that would otherwise not merit their own threads.

Who has said weirdly supportive things about this next administration and who has voiced solid opposition to him and his cronies?

I think the candidates after will try to imitate him for being popular but they will failure hard.

Meanwhile, I think Dems could have a new Bill Clinton or Obama, a candidate who is liked by the Dem base and the undecided voters.

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The fact that so many politicians are such pathetic cowards that the second they get any backlash for the beliefs that they claim to stand for, they just abandon them is very upsetting. If Democrats continue down this path and progressively become more and more anti-woke, they're going to lose voters, not gain them.

I'm seeing a pattern in many lefty people and it's that they are really ungrateful about what they have or what the politics they support had accomplished.

I'm not saying that they should love a politician or a party, but the fact they hate hard Biden and the Democratic party despite being them who gave them LGBT rights, abortion rights, women rights and many worker rights say much about them.

This is also the reason of why I don't think Dems should be more left wing, they will never make them happy no matter what.