After appearing on a recently released lineup of Democrats who could potentially run for president in 2024 should President Joe Biden not enter the race, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker responded amid public reaction.
"I have no intention of running for anything but election for governor," Pritzker said during a recent trip to the Illinois-Iowa border for a new bridge, which some suggest was his first attempt to score votes for a presidential bid.
In a recent report from the New York Times, Pritzker was noted to have "talked privately about his interest in seeking the White House at some point should the opportunity arise."
"Of course people have mentioned this to me, on occasion, but I've never had a conversation with anybody about it," Pritzker added of the reports. "I have never spoken to anyone privately or publicly about that."
In January 2006, then Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said in an interview on Meet the Press that he, too, would not run for president, when asked about his intentions to enter the White House.
"I will serve out my full six-year term," Obama said. "If you get asked enough, you get weary. You start looking for new ways of saying this, but my thinking has not changed."
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Political strategist Thom Serafin weighed in on talk of Pritzker potentially running for other offices.
"I see him in Washington, I always have," Serafin said. "Whether in the Senate, or somewhere else, but it's not bad to have ambition."
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Pritzker has notably been raising his national profile over the past year, namely his recent trip to Glasgow to discuss climate change, his push for criminal justice reform and support for abortion rights, along with a visit to meet with Biden in the Oval Office over the summer.
"You have to realize, frankly, that unfortunately the Democratic bench is just not that deep," Wirepoints' founder Mark Glennon said. "They don't have many alternatives, so who else is there? J.B. Pritzker fits the bill as well as anybody."
The Illinois governor is currently the richest politician in the U.S. and has self-funded his own campaigns, as well as contributing to Democrats nationwide, all of which could help him should he choose to run.
However, Pritzker has said that he is "focused on this job" as governor and is "going to continue to focus on it" as long as he can.
