Will he or won’t he?
It’s a little early for most people to make plans for 2026. But politicians aren’t most people.
So while it was surprising that Gov. J.B. Pritzker last week was dropping hints about 2026 at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, it was hardly shocking that he was musing about seeking a third term.
Pritzker joked that his wife is “my term limit,” suggesting she’ll decide whether he seeks a third term as chief executive.
Pritzker, however, did talk seriously about his political status. He noted that “when I serve out just the end of this second term, I will be the longest-serving Democratic governor in the history of Illinois.”
“It seems crazy, but it’s true,” he said.
Republican Jim Thompson holds the record as the longest-serving governor of Illinois — 14 years.
Pritzker said he was “not suggesting” that he wants to break Thompson’s record. But he’s in great shape to run for a third term.
The multibillionaire heir to a family fortune has unlimited cash to finance his political pursuits, would face no opposition within his own Democratic Party and confront no credible statewide opposition from a desiccated state GOP.
So, barring an almost unimaginable political setback, the governor’s office remains his for the taking.
The governor’s potential interest in seeking re-election sends chills down the spines of the ambitious Democratic politicos who are desperate to move up the ladder.
At the same time, Pritzker might be feeling some frustration himself, looking for other avenues if Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris wins in November.
Setting this year’s bizarre Joe Biden defenestration aside, Harris, if elected, would certainly seek a second term in 2028 because that’s what incumbent presidents do — unless political circumstances of office become so intolerable they opt out.
That’s what happened to Democratic President Harry Truman in 1952, when his public approval ratings were at rock bottom. He dropped out of the race and recruited Democratic Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson to run a doomed presidential campaign against Gen. Dwight Eisenhower.
President Lyndon Johnson pulled out in 1968, his re-election dreams shattered by fallout from the unpopular war in Vietnam.
Then there’s “Joe from Scranton,” whose mental and physical unfitness for a second term was unveiled to an audience of more than 51 million people during his politically suicidal CNN debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump.
That was June 27 — just two months ago. If that seems like ancient history, try to remember that a week can feel like a lifetime in politics.
If Harris wins, Pritzker can pretty much forget about running in 2028, even if he could envision himself joining a Harris cabinet. That possibility would generate turmoil in Democratic ranks.
There’s another possibility for Pritzker, but that depends on a re-election decision to be made by Illinois’ elderly U.S. Sen. Richard Durbin. He’s so old — 79 — he makes the 59-year-old Pritzker look like a spring chicken.
Then again, compared to the late South Carolina U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, who served until he was 100, Durbin is a spring chicken.
Durbin has said he won’t decide on his 2026 re-election bid until after January 2025, when he’ll know who controls the White House and Congress.
He might like the idea of serving in a congressional majority under a Democratic president and decide to stick around.
But if he doesn’t, Pritzker could run for Durbin’s U.S. Senate seat.
There are a multitude of possibilities, depending on events, and Pritzker and other ambitious Illinois Democrats are war-gaming all of them.
