The Band Of Billionaires Betting Against The Country’s Richest Politician

A handful of billionaires including Illinois’ richest person, a crypto cofounder from San Francisco and a cousin have come out against one of their own: Illinois’ Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker.

The November 8 general election is still nearly half a year away, but the Illinois governor’s race is already shaping up to be one of the most expensive in history. Democratic governor J.B. Pritzker and his six Republican challengers have raised a total of $206.3 million to date, nearly three-quarters of the state record $286.7 million raised by Illinois gubernatorial candidates in 2018.

Pritzker, an heir to the Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels fortune and the richest politician in the country (worth an estimated $3.6 billion, according to Forbes), has self-funded his reelection effort with $125 million of personal contributions. That’s nearly three-quarters of the record $171.5 million he gave to his 2018 campaign, outpacing the $57.8 million self-funding effort of then-incumbent Republican Bruce Rauner, a former private equity executive. The lone Democratic challenger this time around, retired Army major Beverly Miles, has not yet reported any campaign contributions, according to Illinois State Board of Elections records.

Under Illinois law, when a candidate like Pritzker spends more than $250,000 on his own campaign, contribution limits are eliminated for his opponents, which helps explain the money sloshing around in the state right now. With early voting already underway in Illinois’ June 28 Republican gubernatorial primary, three frontrunners in that primary have so far raised a combined $76.7 million. At least $55.4 million has come from eight other billionaires and their immediate family members.

Pritzker’s most well-funded opponent and one of the Republican frontrunners has the backing of his longtime rival. The state’s richest person, Ken Griffin (estimated net worth: $25.2 billion), the founder and CEO of Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel, has spent an eye-popping $50 million on the campaign of Aurora, Illinois mayor Richard Irvin. Griffin donated $22.5 million to Pritzker’s opponent in 2018 and another $53.8 million to help defeat a tax hike proposed by the governor in 2020 (reportedly calling Pritzker a “shameless master of personal tax avoidance” in an email sent to Citadel employees at the time).

The “great-grandson of a slave and the first in his family to graduate from college,” Irvin has attracted a number of other billionaire backers, pitching himself as a “tough on crime [former] prosecutor” who “balanced budgets, [provided] tax relief and defeat[ed] the local ‘Defund the Police’ movement as Mayor” of Aurora, according to his campaign website. Shirley Ryan, whose insurance magnate husband Patrick Ryan’s ($7.2 billion) name adorns Northwestern’s football stadium and basketball arena, sent Irvin $250,000, while Chicago-based real estate investment trust pioneer Sam Zell ($5.8 billion) forked over another $100,000.

Irvin, a decorated combat veteran even received $5,150 from the governor’s cousin and the world’s only known transgender billionaire Jennifer Pritzker ($2 billion). She also donated $249,000 to president Joe Biden in 2020, after pouring more than $250,000 into committees supporting former President Donald Trump in 2016 (a veteran herself, Pritzker was a vocal opponent of the transgender military ban proposed by Trump in 2017).

In an emailed statement to Forbes, Jennifer Pritzker said that “I have tremendous respect for my cousin, JB and I commend, in particular, his leadership in handling the pandemic, which has been a very challenging time for our state and our country. We enjoy a good relationship, and that includes the freedom to disagree about some things.”

“But I am aligned with Richard Irvin on many key topics of importance to me, and I’m hopeful that his candidacy for governor will help bolster the two-party system in Illinois,” the governor’s cousin wrote. “Mr. Irvin is a supporter of unity and diversity, is the first African American mayor of Illinois’ second-largest city, a decorated combat veteran, and an ardent proponent of fiscal responsibility, economic growth, and protecting the Second Amendment. His fine record of public service and professional qualifications makes him a very promising candidate for governor of Illinois.”

Largely thanks to Griffin’s backing, Irvin has raised $53.1 million to date–more than four times as much as his closest GOP rival, third-generation farmer and state senator Darren Bailey, who has raised $11.1 million. Of that total, $9 million has come from Richard Uihlein, the little known CEO of his family’s Wisconsin-based shipping and packaging materials business Uline, who has spent millions in an effort to elect far-right Republicans over the years. Bailey, who lists “election integrity”, “pro-life” and “second amendment” as key issues on his campaign website, has also likely benefited from Pritzker-funded television ads primarily targeting Irvin–the more moderate candidate likely seen as a bigger threat to the governor in traditionally Democratic Illinois.

As recently as a month ago, a joint Emerson College/WGN/The Hill poll showed Irvin with a narrow 4% lead over Bailey in the Republican primary. And in a shocking turn of events, Irvin may now trail Bailey by as much as 15%, according to a Chicago Sun-Times/WBEZ poll released last Friday.

Chris Larsen ($3 billion), the San Francisco-based cofounder of blockchain and cryptocurrency firm Ripple, contributed $5 million to a third candidate, Jesse Sullivan, a farmer-turned-philanthropist and venture capitalist focused on emerging global economies, who has promised to “transform Chicago into a hub for cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies.”

Larsen, who has backed Sullivan’s philanthropy and investment fund for more than six years, describes the candidate as “an amazing leader” and a “bridge-builder to a more unified future.” According to Larsen, Sullivan is “focused on technologies that can both solve the climate crisis and grow the economy, putting Chicago in [its] rightful position as a top tier global financial center by embracing fintech and crypto.”

Sullivan, who has raised $12.5 million to date, also received $10,000 from David Duffield ($8.8 billion), the Nevada-based cofounder of software firms PeopleSoft and Workday, and his wife, as well as $25,000 from Dallas-based David Rees-Jones, the son of shale fracking pioneer Trevor Rees-Jones ($4.5 billion). Sullivan has consistently trailed the race’s top two GOP candidates by a wide margin in recent polling.

It will likely be difficult for any of these potential Republican challengers to unseat Pritzker in a state that leans Democrat by a 13% margin, according to FiveThirtyEight. As recently as January, polling by Victory Research showed the governor beating each of the GOP candidates by an average of 30%. But Pritzker may be feeling unusually vulnerable, with a net approval rating of only +8%, according to another poll by FiveThirtyEight in May, making him the 37th most popular governor in the country on a partisanship-adjusted basis.

While his opponents have hammered Pritzker on crime, the state of the economy hasn’t helped. Despite a recent upgrade of the state’s credit rating from BBB to BBB+, credit rating agency S&P Global still ranked Illinois as the country’s least creditworthy state as of May 23. Still, that’s an improvement; the state’s debt was rated two notches lower at BBB- when Pritzker entered office. According to a February report by credit rating agency Moody’s, “Illinois was one of four states or territories that lost residents during the past decade, and additional losses are in store,” as “fiscal problems continue to plague the state.”

While the governor hasn’t received any billionaire contributions to date, it may be because he isn’t looking for any, having decided he can afford to go it alone. “I’m not aware that JB is seeking contributions,” says cousin John Pritzker ($2.7 billion), one of 13 billionaires and immediate family members of billionaires who combined to donate a largely symbolic $805,000 to the governor’s 2018 campaign. “I could be wrong, and I would [donate] if he asked, but he hasn’t.” Other billionaire backers of Pritzker’s last campaign included his cousin Karen Pritzker ($5.3 billion); Chicago Bulls and White Sox co-owner Jerry Reinsdorf ($1.8 billion); and Chicago Cubs co-owner Laura Ricketts, whose father J. Joe Ricketts ($3.5 billion) built brokerage TD Ameritrade and donated $22.3 million to Trump and other Republicans in 2020.

The governor has proven he’s willing to spend whatever it takes to win and he doesn’t appear to be waiting around for backup. Whether he ends up shattering his 2018 self-funding record may depend on Ken Griffin’s willingness to keep writing checks with his preferred candidate now trailing in the primary–and the emergence of more billionaires to help Griffin narrow the governor’s funding lead. With the general election more than half a year away, anything could happen.