Gov. Bruce Rauner complained to fellow Republicans about his billionaire Democratic opponent, J.B. Pritzker, plowing $96 million more into his campaign war chest than he and his supporters have.
Rauner, himself a megamillionaire who has largely self-funded his two runs for office, spoke without a trace of irony.
“The guy has never worked an honest day in his life,” Rauner grumbled to supporters nursing beers at a suburban Chicago bar hosting an Illinois GOP rally this week. “He’s never had a job. He’s a member of the silver spoon club to put it nicely.
“He’s a trust fund baby. That’s all he is. The guy is a disaster.”
Polls suggest that Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotel chain who Forbes estimates has a net worth of $3.2 billion, will coast to victory over Rauner in a blue state where Democrats are counting on voter anger with President Donald Trump to bolster their candidates up and down the ballot.
Still, as Election Day nears, the vitriol – and the ceaseless campaign advertising – isn’t abating in what’s shaping up as the most expensive gubernatorial race in U.S. history.
More than $284 million has been raised for the Illinois governor’s race, more than the nearly $280 million spent in the record-setting 2010 California gubernatorial race in which Republican former Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman largely self-funded a losing campaign against Democratic incumbent Jerry Brown.
The amount of campaign cash raised in Illinois is even more astounding considering California had a population of about 37.3 million in 2010, nearly three times the size of the Land of Lincoln today.
The winner of Tuesday’s election gets the opportunity to lead a state that’s been bleeding population for years as it’s mired by mountains of debt and a credit rating a notch above junk status.
