Pritzker on 2028: ‘I don’t know what the future holds’
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) would not rule out a 2028 run for president when asked repeatedly about his political future in a Sunday interview.
“I’m not thinking about— that’s too far away,” Pritzker said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation,” regarding the next Democratic candidate for president. “Let’s talk about the 2026 election.”
The Illinois governor announced earlier this summer that he is running for a third term next year.
In the Sunday interview, Pritzker sidestepped questions about whether voters can “walk into the booth in Illinois knowing that you’re going to serve a full term if you’re reelected to a third term.”
“I’ve been in office now for six-and-a-half years. I have dedicated myself, myself entirely to the state of Illinois, and I always will,” he responded.
“I don’t know what the future holds,” he continued. “What I can tell you is I’m totally dedicated to upholding the rights of people in the state of Illinois and making sure that we’re protecting them, especially from a tyrant who’s taken over the White House.”
CBS News’s Ed O’Keefe continued to press Pritzker on his political ambitions.
“But you — are you planning to run for president right now?”
“My plan is to run for reelection as governor of the state,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker touted the “bench among the Democratic Party that is really terrific.”
“I could point to governors. I could point to senators. I think there are a lot of good choices,” he continued. “I can just say that there, you know, there’s no reason for us not to be thinking about all of those choices and thinking about what is it that the American people really want?”
O’Keefe followed up: “When we talk about the bench. Is it responsible, is it accurate to put you on that bench?”
“What’s accurate is that we’ve got a terrific group of people who could be president of the United States, on the Democratic side, and I’m happy to stand with them as we stand against Donald Trump,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker has emerged as a fierce opponent to President Trump, pushing back especially against the Republican leader’s reported plans to send National Guard troops to Chicago, in his effort to crack down on crime in major Democratic-run cities.
In the same interview, Pritzker shot down suggestions that his state undertake a similar mid-decade partisan redistricting push to those seen in Texas and California.
“It’s not something that I want to do, and I’d like it to stop here,” he said. “I know Texas is now signing this map into law. … And we’re now going to see it in California, probably.”
“I hope that it ends there. It ought to end there. And we ought to, you know, get a census done in 2030 and a new map done in 2031,” Pritzker said.