Hillary Clinton Speaks At Ida's Legacy Fundraiser Luncheon In Chicago
Hyatt heir and longtime Democratic donor J.B. Pritzker gave a record $171.5 million of his own money to his campaign to become Illinois’ new governor. And just a little over an hour after the polls closed, Pritzker found out it was money well spent. According to multiple news outlets, Pritzker beat out incumbent Republican governor Bruce Rauner, winning by an estimated 31% margin as of 9:25 p.m. Eastern Time.
Once Pritzker assumes office, he will be the richest sitting politician in the country, worth an estimated $3.2 billion, surpassing President Trump, who currently holds that title with a net worth of $3.1 billion.
“I know I grew up lucky in life, with a good family and the resources to get a great education and to pursue my dreams,” Pritzker said when he announced his candidacy in April 2017. The Illinois resident’s fortune comes from the Hyatt Hotel chain, which was founded by his uncle Jay in 1957 and run by his father, Donald. Nevertheless, Pritzker didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. He graduated from Northwestern Law in 1993. Three years later, he and his brother Anthony founded the private equity firm Pritzker Group. The company, from which Pritzker stepped away, owns and runs industrial firms and has a stake in SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket firm.
During a record-breaking election in money terms (federal candidates raised an estimated record of $5.2 billion), Pritzker stood out for setting a new record in self-financing: Forbes estimates he has given the largest amount of his own money to his campaign in U.S. history—$171.5 million (the campaign spent a total of $135.9 million on the election). Rauner, who was an early partner in a Chicago-based private equity firm, spent $57.8 million on his own reelection campaign in 2015 and 2016. Together, their personal spending during this election cycle almost hit $230 million.
Meg Whitman previously held the record after spending $144 million on her failed gubernatorial bid in California in 2014. Florida governor Rick Scott, who is in a too-close-to-call race for U.S. Senate, spent about $60 million on his gubernatorial race in 2010.
“Given the campaign finance arms race, it's increasingly the case that you can't run for office unless you're either rich or have a lot of rich friends. That restricts voters' choice because there's evidence in political finance that rich people have systematically different views about various public policy questions than everyone else,” says Ian Vandewalker, a senior counsel at Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. “If the only people who can ever get in office are people who are already rich, that really skews the way the government solves the policy problems that affect everyone."
(For more on who spent the most money on their federal campaigns, read Forbes' coverage from earlier in the week.)
As Pritzker bankrolled his own bid, his opponent, Governor Rauner, not only spent millions on his own campaign but got millions more from Chicago billionaire Ken Griffin. The hedge fund billionaire spent $22.5 million in 2017 to help reelect Rauner. His contribution was the largest made to any statewide race across the country during this election cycle (excluding candidates’ own money), according to the National Institute on Money In Politics. He held the same record in 2014 when he gave $13.6 million to Rauner.
In addition to financing his own campaign, Pritzker contributed $661,000 to federal Democratic candidates and super PACs in 2018, according to the Federal Election Commission. Prior to seeking governorship in his home state, Pritzker invested millions of dollars in Democratic causes. In 2016, he spent over $14 million supporting Democrats, including former secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“[Hillary Clinton], I believe, understands better than any other candidate—including a real estate developer that's running—how to create jobs in the United States,” he said in an interview with CNN Money in May 2016, clashing with his brother Anthony, who sat next to him. Anthony contributed about $1 million to mostly Republicans and the Libertarian Party in 2016; he gave another $220,000 to mostly Republicans in 2018. Their sister Penny Pritzker, also a billionaire, served as U.S. commerce secretary under President Obama from 2013 to early 2017.
