In a luncheon speech at the Texas Democratic Convention, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker told a cheering crowd to confront President Donald Trump and end what he called a “complacent” Democratic approach, urging empathy for “the struggling” while defending the need
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The moment broke the usual rhythm of a political luncheon: an attendee interrupted Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker with a shout—“Run for president!”
Pritzker, who has repeatedly sidestepped questions about his own political future, paused and leaned into the distraction. “It must be a cousin,” he said.
By the time the crowd settled. the governor had shifted back to the reason he was there—speaking to Texas Democrats at their convention lunch on Friday. using the platform to press hard on President Donald Trump. criticize what he called Democratic “complacent” thinking. and frame the party’s next steps as moral as well as strategic.
“The best job I’ll ever have,” Pritzker said earlier in the speech, before turning to his target.
He argued that Trump has succeeded in ways that don’t match the promises of American politics. “He [Trump] has accomplished in his presidency what he never achieved in his business career. He’s finally making a profit,” Pritzker said. Then he went after the tone of the administration. “And Trump has turned 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue from the people’s house to a nuthouse. where he’s retreated to the last and only respite of the desperate and the damned: paranoid self-delusion.”.
Pritzker told the crowd Democrats are tired of “talking about Trump,” but said the party still can’t look past him without confronting what he is doing. He said Democrats need to “fully and honestly confront what he is doing to this country.”
Trump, in Pritzker’s telling, is no side issue. “Donald Trump is a reflecting pool of our politics,” he said. “You can paint the bottom blue, but it won’t conceal the polluted water above.”
He laid responsibility not just at the feet of the president, but at Democratic leadership. Pritzker blamed Democratic Party leaders for “growing ‘complacent’” and for “letting nostalgia for parts of our political past replace efforts to innovate our political future.” He said Democrats had gotten comfortable with the idea that democracy didn’t require constant work. “Unwilling to break old customs to build new foundations. it seems like everyone on our side thought democracy was a garden that didn’t need tending. forgetting that weeds need to be pulled up by their roots. not just occasionally mowed down. ” he said.
That critique landed as Democrats, he acknowledged, face a political landscape shaped by the party’s 2024 presidential-election troubles. Still. Pritzker pointed to what he described as small but meaningful openings: “a mild shift in the blades. ” including “electoral wins in the past year. ” shifting polls. and “the growing defiance of GOP politicians.”.
Then he brought it back to what he called empathy—treating the party’s future as something that has to show up in how it speaks and who it protects. “I think it’s time to demand from our leaders that they show empathy to the struggling. compassion to the destitute. ” Pritzker said. “I don’t think cruelty is some virtue that shows us how much of a man you are. Blatant racism doesn’t make you tough, it just makes you a racist. I don’t think that the constant barrage of insults that comes from the president’s social media account is some new brand of politics. I just think it’s mean. and I think that we should say that to the American people plainly and clearly. because most Americans choose kindness over cruelty.”.
Faith, Pritzker added, has to lead to action, not passive hope. He spoke to the spiritual Texans in the room about “the need for faith and action over pure optimism to address a broken American promise.”
The interruption about a presidential run followed him anyway—partly because he is still the subject of speculation. and partly because he has repeatedly avoided direct answers about whether he plans to seek higher office. His political position in national polling has also left room for both encouragement and doubt: Pritzker has been polling between 1% and 7% in recent presidential polls. though he has said he is focused on his reelection bid.
Outside the speech, Texas Democrats are getting a close-up look at how Pritzker is cultivating relationships. He has been making “useful inroads with Texas Democrats,” including giving them refuge and hosting a fundraiser this week in Chicago for Senate Democratic hopeful James Talarico.
His outreach to the Texas party also connects to a moment from nearly a year ago. About 10 months before the convention luncheon, he helped welcome 40 Texas House Democrats as they denied Republicans a quorum needed to approve new maps to expand the GOP’s congressional majority.
As for what Democrats hear when he talks, Texas state Rep. Nicole Collier—one of the Texas Democrats who came to Illinois last year—described Pritzker in plainly personal terms. Speaking to the Chicago Sun-Times, Collier said Pritzker is a “fighter” and a leader who “stepped up when we needed him.”
Collier said Democrats can’t continue as they have. “We can’t keep doing things the way that we have done,” she said. “And we need leaders who recognize that and who are courageous enough to take the reins and steer us into a different direction.”
In Corpus Christi, the shouted call for a presidential bid didn’t derail the message. If anything. it underscored the tension running through the room: the desire for change. the frustration with politics as usual. and the insistence—by Pritzker and by the Texas lawmakers who brought him in—that the next chapter demands more than optimism and more than slogans.
JB Pritzker Texas Democratic Convention Donald Trump empathy Democratic Party Nicole Collier James Talarico 2028 presidential campaign political polling