Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker moved Wednesday to enhance his national profile — and provoked further speculation about his future political plans — by creating an organization to promote abortion and LGBTQ+ rights issues and fight “right wing extremists” on a state-by-state basis.
With the launch of his Think Big America, a tax-exempt organization that can devote unlimited funding to lobbying on behalf of its political goals, Pritzker is expanding upon his long-standing support for his party and abortion rights, and increasing his progressive political footprint for a possible future bid for the presidency.
“Our nation is at a crossroads. Over the last few years, the far right agenda has only become more extreme. The end of reproductive rights, widespread book bans, a rollback of voting rights and civil rights, the erosion of trust in our institutions. That will be our permanent reality if we don’t act now,” Pritzker said in a launch video.
“Think Big America is committed to protecting our rights, defending our democracy and fighting for working families,” the governor said. “The struggle to overcome the extremists and preserve democracy is happening right now. Together, let’s think big for America’s brighter future.”
The “think big” title of the organization is a play off the campaign theme successfully employed twice by the second-term Illinois governor, an entrepreneur and an heir of the Hyatt hotels fortune who is worth an estimated $3.5 billion, making him the nation’s wealthiest elected politician.
Pritzker has long been a donor to Democratic candidates and causes nationally as well as in Illinois. He has given nearly $1.8 million in political and personal funds to Personal PAC, the state’s preeminent abortion rights political action committee, since 2005.
Last year, Pritzker also allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Democratic Party of Illinois on behalf of local school and library board candidates who faced conservative opponents.
Pritzker’s initial funding for the new organization was not disclosed. The group’s focus out of the gate will be on planned ballot initiatives in Ohio, Nevada and Arizona to codify abortion rights under state constitutions.
Those initiatives follow electoral successes for abortion rights advocates in Ohio, Wisconsin and Kansas last year that Pritzker also backed personally.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Wednesday that a poll by Baldwin Wallace University showed the Ohio proposition to add abortion rights to that state’s constitution was backed by 58% of voters, while 34% were opposed.
Pritzker has hailed Illinois as an “oasis” for women’s reproductive rights under his leadership. The state codified a right to abortion in state law in 2019 and Pritzker signed legislation last year aimed at protecting abortion providers from legal action, expanding insurance coverage and increasing reproductive health access.
Democrats have seen abortion rights serve nationally as a powerful driver for support since the June 2022 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned a federal right to abortion and returned the issue to the individual states. Republicans are counting on immigration issues, highlighted by an influx of migrants being sent to Chicago and other Democratic cities, as a potential counter to reduce Democratic turnout and the effect of the abortion ruling.
Pritzker has expressed unwavering support for President Joe Biden’s reelection and eschewed talk of being a potential “Plan B” if Biden had chosen not to run or took himself out of the running.
In June, Pritzker gave more than $131,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee of the president’s reelection campaign, the Democratic National Committee and several state Democratic Party organizations.
Pritzker also is an advisory member to Biden’s reelection campaign and will be host governor in August for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Biden is set to be renominated.
Christopher Mooney, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that forming Think Big America represents a “strategic move on (Pritzker’s) part for his own interests as well as creating a situation where he can say, ‘I’m a progressive. I see the other side’s got well funded advocates and so we need some on our side. And oh, if I’ve helped myself a little bit nationally, that’s just a side benefit.’”
Pritzker, Mooney said, “can look long term and is poised in perfect position” to consider a 2028 bid for the presidency and has “all the money he needs to just go out to every (state Democratic Party) dinner and every state in the country.”