COLUMBIA — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker will be on his state’s ballot in just a few weeks as he seeks a third term, but he spent his Saturday 600 miles away stumping for Democrats across South Carolina.
Pritzker flexed his liberal accomplishments in Illinois and his high-profile confrontations with President Donald Trump during the daylong swing through the state Oct 10. He started with community meetings in Charleston before stops in Manning and Columbia and a keynote slot at the state NAACP’s annual convention Saturday night.
It his terms, he’s on “team fight,” and he urged voters in Columbia that they should be too — unlike some in his party whom he said have been “too dainty” in taking on Trump and other Republicans.
“We’re too nice,” he said. “And I know; I’m not saying that we’ve got to throw out our morals or values, or that we’re going to break the law. None of that. But we’ve been letting them get away with murder.”
Pritzker’s reputation as a Trump antagonist has endeared him to some Democrats here who say they want their party’s national leaders — and future presidential nominee — to go hard at the MAGA movement.
“He’s not shied away from going after Trump,” said Bradley Kenobi, 30, a hospital worker and graduate student, who said he has Pritzker in his “top 3” of early presidential picks during the Columbia stop.
As with the rest of the national Democratic figures who have made their way to South Carolina since it was locked as the first state in the 2028 Democratic primary calendar, Pritzker hasn’t said he’s running for the White House.
He told reporters he was here because the state NAACP had invited him, and that he was focused on helping elect Democrats like U.S. Senate nominee Annie Andrews and state Rep. Jermaine Johnson, the gubernatorial nominee, because it would help Illinois.
Nonetheless, his campaign stops and speech at the NAACP awards dinner put him in front of Black voters, who are a perennially key demographic in the state’s primary.
But Pritzker has concerns about closer elections.
He’s worried that Trump will use federal immigration enforcement agencies to intimidate voters at polling places during the Nov. 3 midterm after Chicago was one of the blue cities that saw a surge in U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement activity last year.
“But I don’t think we’re going to be the biggest target,” Pritzker told reporters of his midterm concerns. “I think he’s going after the places where there are serious elections where he is in trouble, where his party is in trouble, and that could be in South Carolina.”
He said people’s voting rights are just one part of American democracy rights “under siege” by Republicans.
His recent record of supporting candidates in Southern states, such as $1 million donation to Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for governor in Texas, also won him some plaudits here amid a larger scuffle over how much to invest in the Texas race.
South Carolina Democrats agreed with that strategy.
“We need leaders who know that investing in the South is where it’s at, because if we want to change this country we’re going to have to really start talking about South Carolina,” said S.C. Democratic Party Chair Christale Spain.
Pritzker urged red-state Democratic candidates to “be real about what you believe” and do so aggressively because that sense of strength is what made so many people support Trump, he said.
“Team fight. That is the team people want you to be on right now,” he said.