Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker wins a third term in Illinois

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has clinched a third term in office, gliding past Republican Darren Bailey in a rematch of the 2022 election, NBC News projects.

Securing re-election gives Pritzker a public perch from which he can potentially launch a 2028 presidential bid.

He has taken trips to pivotal early presidential primary states such as New Hampshire and South Carolina and showered national and state parties with donations. He has increasingly placed himself in the national spotlight, including when he strenuously pushed back on President Donald Trump’s attempts to deploy the National Guard in Illinois and aggressive immigration operations that played out in the state in 2025.

Last year, Trump said Pritzker belonged in jail, drawing a defiant response from the governor, who told reporters that Trump should “come and get me.”

“Trump is now calling for the arrest of elected representatives checking his power,” he wrote on X. “What else is left on the path to full-blown authoritarianism?”

Pritzker, a billionaire, has self-funded his campaigns for governor. But in May, NBC News reported that Pritzker gave signs that he would raise money from other sources should he launch a presidential bid.

In deep blue Illinois, Pritzker faced few barriers to re-election in a state where he has maintained steady voter approval. Pritzker’s messaging sought to tie Bailey, of downstate Illinois, to Trump, who is wildly unpopular in the state.

In February, Pritzker worked to curb expansion of data centers, which are unpopular with voters, by calling for a two-year suspension of tax incentives for new data center proposals.

Illinois still faces its set of challenges, however. Though crime in Chicago has substantially fallen, gang violence and gunfire persist. The state’s residents also pay some of the highest property tax bills in the country.

Pritzker has attempted but failed to change the state’s income tax structure, aiming to create a graduated income tax instead of a flat tax. The governor has said a progressive income tax would bring more revenue to the state while placing the higher tax burden on the wealthiest. But in 2020, voters rejected a ballot question to change the tax structure. At the time, billionaire Ken Griffin funded a counteroffensive to successfully defeat the measure.

Pritzker was one of several Democratic governors, including Wes Moore in Maryland and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, on the ballot Tuesday who could be in the mix in the next presidential contest.