What You Need to Know From the Illinois Primary

The race for the highest office in IL is set, after billionaire J.B. Pritzker easily defeated five other candidates in the bid for the Democratic nomination, and Gov. Bruce Rauner squeaked out a win on the Republican side.

Pritzker didn’t get a majority, collecting just 45 percent of the vote in the six-man field, but he won 98 of Illinois’ 102 counties and far outpaced runner-up state Sen. House Representative Dan Lipinski, an anti-abortion Democrat, edged out a challenge from progressive candidate Marie Newman in a race considered a telling sign of the Democratic party’s internal conflicts, according to Politico.

Marie Newman, who was little-known when she chose to challenge Lipinski for the seat he inherited from his father, had backing from progressive groups as well as Sen.

“I am going to beat Bruce Rauner and together we will get IL back on the side of working families”, Priztker told supporters Tuesday night.

Pritzker, a billionaire, and Rauner, a multi-millionaire, each spent millions of their own money attacking each other even before the primary.

Rauner addressed primary challenger Jeanne Ives’ ability to collect votes from conservatives that may question Rauner’s stances on social issues such as abortion and immigration. While a victory may have seemed in the bag, an incumbent governor hasn’t been unseated in a primary in 42 years, Ives didn’t let up, using every cent of her exponentially-smaller budget to take Rauner down to the wire and to task.

“I think that they [voters] should anticipate that Bruce Rauner is going to run one of the most negative campaigns in history because he has nothing positive to run on, and I will fight a tough campaign”, Pritzker said.

Gov. Bruce Rauner kicked off his re-election campaign Wednesday night at the River House, the day after narrowly winning the Republican gubernatorial primary.

Mr. Pritzker and Mr. Rauner are fighting to lead a state with deeply entrenched problems. After no credible Republican filed to run, the only challenger on the ballot will be Art Jones, a neo-Nazi activist denounced by the GOP. The pair’s combined personal spending on the race tops $120 million already.

Rauner hit Pritzker for tax shelters the latter has used, recently exposed by reporting in the Chicago Tribune. That’s not a great showing for Rauner – incumbent governors nearly always win renomination, and they often do so without much trouble from their own party.

Former governor and Illinois Attorney General candidate Pat Quinn holds up holds up an “I Voted” wrist band after voting, Tuesday, March 20, 2018, in Chicago. The Democratic front-runner has been advertising on television from almost the moment he announced his candidacy 11 months ago. Pritzker maintained that those accounts were focused on charitable giving and that he had no control over them. Democrat Chris Kennedy has about $2 million in his.

What Rauner didn’t mention is that while he was chairman of the private equity firm GTCR before becoming governor in 2014, he invested in several of his company’s offshore investment pools registered in the Cayman Islands. The ads included a 30-minute infomercial-style ad with the full Federal Bureau of Investigation recordings. The governor took office in 2015 just days after a temporary income tax expired, but Rauner, a former venture capitalist, opposed another increase to make up the lost revenue.

Pritzker apologized last month, with White by his side. Harold scored contributions from Rauner and backing from the Illinois Republican Party.

When he embarked on his first term, Rauner promised to “shake up” Springfield with a pro-business agenda that included lowering property taxes and instituting term limits on officeholders.