J.B. Pritzker is the Governor of Illinois. He assumed office on January 14, 2019. His current term ends on January 11, 2027. He was first elected on November 6, 2018, on a joint ticket with lieutenant governor candidate Juliana Stratton. Pritzker defeated incumbent Gov. Bruce Rauner by a margin of 15 percentage points. When Pritzker took office, Illinois switched from a divided government to a Democratic trifecta. Pritzker announced he would seek a third term as governor on June 26, 2025. In a speech announcing his campaign, Pritzker said: "I ran for governor in 2018 to change our story. I ran for governor in 2022 to keep telling our story. And I am running for governor in 2026 to protect our story." Pritzker listed the following as executive and legislative accomplishments during his tenure: enacting balanced budgets each year and receiving credit upgrades for the state, increasing public school funding, banning assault weapons, and passing the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act. As of August 2023, Forbes estimated Pritzker had a net worth of $3.6 billion, making him the wealthiest elected official in the United States. Pritzker is an heir to the Hyatt Hotel chain. New York Magazine's Gabriel Debenedetti wrote, "He is unapologetic about the political headway his donations and suggestions can make — electing Democrats is important, he says, so he’s doing what he can to help. [..] In [the 2022] midterms, that posture meant spreading donations to gubernatorial races such as his own (he spent more than any candidate ever has to boost a far-right opponent in Illinois’s GOP primary who he determined would be easy to beat) and to lower-profile but highly consequential contests like the election of a liberal judge to tip the Wisconsin Supreme Court to the left."