The Left Should Consider Pritzker 28

He’s embraced progressive policies—and he can win

The current fascist assault on democracy is so pressing, and so bleak, that it’s difficult to focus on anything happening next week, much less three years from now. Nonetheless, the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination contest is in fact underway, and a wide range of politicians are currently doing the things you’d do if you were planning to enter primaries. People who are signaling they are more or less in the race right now include, I think, former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Corey Booker, former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and probably others I’ve missed.

Not Newsom, for God’s sake

Currently, the 2028 candidate who is taking up the most space is California Governor Gavin Newsom. Trump has sent National Guard troops into LA and has relentlessly insulted and attacked California, mostly because it’s a Democratic stronghold.

Newsom has capitalized on that to position himself as a leader of the resistance; most notably, he’s led a blue state charge to gerrymander more Democratic safe seats in response to Texas’ racist effort to disenfranchise the state’s Black population. He’s also got a decent comms staff which has been trolling Trump using a parody of the president’s incoherent social media style. I can’t say I find this especially inspirational, but many partisan Democrats are enjoying it.

I’m pleased that Newsom is pushing ahead with a partisan gerrymander and fighting to try to deny Trump the ability to steal the House in 2026. However, for me, as for many on the left, his other policies are disturbing, and/or despicable.

Earlier this year, Newsom hosted friendly podcasts with far right ghouls Charlie Kirk and Steve Bannon; pushed by Kirk, he groveled to fascist bigotry and asserted that trans women and girls competing in sports was “deeply unfair.” He's also launched attacks on homeless encampments, urging California cities to destroy homeless people’s shelter and property, treating them as criminals for having no place to live. He’s indebted to Silicon Valley, vetoing an important AI regulation bill this year. He also vetoed a law outlawing caste discrimination, and another protecting trans children during adoption. And he’s targeted pro-Palestinian students with legislation designed to criminalize their protests and speech.

For these reasons, and because he appears in general to be an opportunistic slimeball with no real principles, I am not enthusiastic about Newsom as president. I think he would codify and extend many of Trump’s ugly policies—against trans people, against homeless people—leading the Democrats further down the road of fascism lite which appears to be the current trajectory of Labour in the UK.

Luckily, again, there are other options. One hopeful one is Illinois governor JB Pritzker.

Pritzker has a progressive record

Pritzker is a billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotel chain, and when he originally ran for governor in 2019, I was unimpressed and unenthused. I figured he’d be a bland pro-corporate centrist. I knew he’d be better than the dreadful Republican he was challenging, but I didn’t have much hope beyond that.

Instead, Pritzker has governed as one of the most progressive governors, if not the most progressive, in the country. He’s signed legislation protecting abortion and trans refugees to the state. He passed cannabis legalization through the legislature, with a strong focus on racial equity. He’s also ended cash bail, and buttressed and reformed that state’s public defender system. He passed a major climate bill. He’s strengthened union protections. He’s forcefully defended immigrants and Illinois sanctuary city laws. And all of this after fixing a state budget decimated by his incompetent Republican predecessor

Pritzker has also been a consistent voice urging Democrats to fight Trump. Earlier this year while Newsom was crawling on his belly to Charlie Kirk, Pritzker was publicly and privately excoriating Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer for caving to Trump over and over.

In another very stark contrast with Newsom, Pritzker has fiercely defended trans children in uncompromising rhetoric that contrasts sharply with Newsom’s shilly-shallying. “I know that there are transgender children right now looking out at this world and wondering if anyone is going to stand up for them and for their simple right to exist," he said. "Well, I am. We are. We will."

Currently, Pritzker is coordinating resources for Texas Democrats who boycotted Texas in order to deny the state a quorum for redistricting. Most of these Democrats are currently sheltering in Illinois.

Progressives need to choose a Democrat

No candidate is perfect, and Pritzker is not either. We don’t need more billionaire presidents; arguably we don’t need more white male presidents either. Though he’s generally been a strong supporter of unions, he vetoed a bill providing warehouse workers with more protections, earning a rebuke from the Teamsters. Like most mainstream Democrats, he was unwilling to condemn the Israeli genocide for far too long—though he recently said that he supports Senate efforts to end arms sales in an effort to force Israel to cease its massive human rights violations. (Newsom, notably, has said no such thing.)

Pritzker is not the candidate the left would choose for themselves all other things being equal. That’s in part about policy. But it’s also about identity. Pritzker has not, and does not, position himself as a leftist in the anti-establishment, anti-Democrat, a-pox-on-both-parties vein of Bernie Sanders. He’s not an avowed socialist like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He hasn’t even really positioned himself as an anti corporate leader of the Democratic left a la Elizabeth Warren. Pritzker is deeply connected in the Democratic establishment, and he’s generally presented his policies as in line with mainstream Democratic values, rather than as an alternative to Democratic policy, or as an insurgent strain within the party.

It's easy to dismiss these concerns and say you should focus on policy rather than on whether someone calls themselves as a leftist. But the fact is everyone wants to vote for someone that they can identify with More, when a candidate says, “I’m a leftist” they’re saying they want the left’s approval and will try to retain it. Biden passed a lot of progressive economic policies and deserves more credit for that. But he saw his alliance with progressives as one of convenience and felt no compunction about defying the left to perpetuate Israel’s horrific genocide.

On the other hand, Sanders’ failed campaigns in 2016 and 2020 made it clear that running as a leftist against Democrats in a Democratic primary is not a winning formula. Warren’s effort to position herself as both a leftist and a mainstream Democrat didn’t really work either.

The stakes are even higher for 2028 as Democrats decide whether to compromise further with fascism or use Trump’s monstrous term as a way to embrace and rebuild multi-racial democracy. Pritzker is not necessarily a man of the left, but he has a very progressive record, is resolutely anti Trump, and has shown he is interested in working with and listening to progressive groups such as the coalition which pushed for ending money bond. Mainstream Democrats like him. If he wins, he won’t be a leftist, exactly, but he will push for many left policies. He’s someone who, like FDR, could lead a broad coalition in which the left would be a driving force, rather than an enemy. (And without FDR’s compromise with Jim Crow.)

I’m not saying the left should choose Pritzker over AOC, or should refuse to criticize him if or when he does bad things. What I am arguing, though, is that Pritzker is someone who is much, much better than Newsom (or Booker, or Buttigieg, or god help us Rahm) on policy while also looking like someone who is well positioned to win a primary precisely because he is seen as a mainstream Democrat by most Democrats. With strong left support, he could box out someone like Newsom, who has alienated key constituencies in order to appeal to Charlie Kirk—a guy who is not going to be voting in a Democratic primary.

A lot is going to happen before 2028. But I do think the left would do well to think about whether we want to double down once more on an insurgent candidate, or whether it might be wise to cover our bases by looking to a mainstream Democrat who broadly aligns with our values and who, with our help, could maybe beat the mainstream Democrats who don’t. Pritzker, were he to win, would be the most progressive president in history by a fair margin. His election wouldn’t be a failure or a compromise for the left. It would be a win.

No one person can save us. But we need to think about how we can form coalitions to overcome the ascendant forces of fascism. Pritzker, I think, could help create one such coalition. I think the left should consider helping him.