CHICAGO _ Billionaire entrepreneur and investor J.B. Pritzker, a longtime Democratic fundraiser, formally joined the race for his party's nomination for governor and the opportunity to take on Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.
Pritzker's announcement Thursday had been expected and ends a brief exploratory effort he started last month.
"I'm J.B. Pritzker and I'm running for governor of Illinois," he introduced himself to a crowd of supporters at the Grand Crossing Gym on the South Side.
He now joins a field of contenders that include Chicago businessman Chris Kennedy, an heir to the iconic political family, North Side Alderman Ameya Pawar, state Sen. Daniel Biss of Evanston and the lone downstate candidate so far, Madison County schools Superintendent Bob Daiber.
Pritzker, an heir to the family's Hyatt hotel fortune, is a founder of Pritzker Group, a private investment firm. He also founded the tech hub 1871. Forbes estimates his wealth at $3.4 billion.
It is the second time Pritzker has made a bid for public office. In 1998 he lost a primary bid for the Democratic nomination for Congress to Jan Schakowsky, who won and remains the officeholder in the North Shore's 9th District.
But Pritzker has long been involved in politics. In the 1990s, he founded a national group aimed at attracting voters under age 40 to the Democratic Party. In 2008, he was a national co-chair of Democrat Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign against then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
In the 2008 campaign, Pritzker's sister, Penny, backed Obama's presidential bid. After he won, she became his secretary of commerce.
In 2016, Pritzker donated millions of dollars to Priorities USA, a group that heavily backed Clinton in her unsuccessful bid against Republican Donald Trump.
Pritzker and Kennedy find themselves on one side of the developing race as moneyed establishment candidates. On the other side is Pawar and Biss, who are trying to appeal to more populist progressive support.
Some Democrats privately have expressed a desire to have a candidate who can directly take on Rauner's willingness to spend, while freeing up resources for the Democratic defense of control of the legislature. But other Democrats argue having a wealthy candidate negates using a class argument against Rauner.
