By: Ted Dabrowski and John Klingner
In what’s surely a painful, if only temporary, blow to his political ambitions, polls in the five major swing states show Gov. J.B. Pritzker ranks last as a VP choice for Kamala Harris.
Emerson College Polling/The Hill surveyed likely voters in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan on July 22-23, with one of the questions being who should be considered for VP.
First, look at what registered Democrats had to say. In Arizona, Pritzker got just 0.2% of the vote. In Pennsylvania it was only slightly higher, at 0.5%. In Michigan, 1.1% and in Georgia, 2.4%.
Even in Wisconsin, where Gov. Pritzker has a vacation home and has spent millions on political campaigns, he still finished last with just 4.1% of the votes.
The polling outcome is brutal for the Illinois governor.
When polling results from all registered voters are analyzed, Pritzker fared about the same, though he didn’t finish last in Wisconsin, where North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper did slightly worse. The table for all registered voters in the five swing states is in the appendix.
Of course, national figures like Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders performed well based on name recognition alone. And swing state politicians took the top spots in their home states. Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly scored highest in Arizona, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Sharpiro pulled 57% of Pennsylvania Dems, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was most popular in Michigan.
But a lack of home-field advantage doesn’t explain why Pritzker still ended up last in all five states.
One charitable explanation is that Democrats in other states just don’t know who he is. That could be the reason Pritzker polled so poorly in both Arizona and Pennsylvania where he got under one percent. But neither Andy Beshear nor Roy Cooper are nationally known and they still did better than Pritzker. Same goes for Josh Shapiro and Mark Kelly in states other than their own.
Another reason is Illinois’ economic, jobs, crime and out-migration record has been among the worst in the country over the past twenty years or so. Perhaps the state’s reputation immediately disqualifies Pritzker in the eyes of voters.
Or perhaps Gov. Pritzker’s policies are too extreme. Pritzker has staked out radical positions on everything from abortion, to green energy, gun control, taxes and more. Members of his own party may think he’s gone too far left to appeal to swing voters.
A last reason is he may be just too unlikeable for a national audience. Yes, Pritzker’s had two big gubernatorial wins in Illinois, but that’s because he literally bought his way into the governor’s office both times. Pritzker spent over $350 million of his own money on his two campaigns. In the second race to keep his office, Pritzker even spent $35 million on the Republican gubernatorial primary to ensure he would face the candidate of his choice. The reality is no one really knows just how popular Pritzker is.
Whatever the reasons, the poll is not a good look for a man who, until just recently, had clear presidential ambitions.
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Illinois’ out-migration losses: Measuring the destructive impact on the state’s tax base
- Chicago’s Southland residents are irate about their property tax hikes. Wait till they see how their money is being spent.
- Gov. Pritzker’s role in the extreme rhetoric surrounding Donald Trump
- Pritzker’s ‘Think Big America’ ads on abortion and IVF: more dishonesty
Appendix
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Hope he gets the nomination. Out of our hair and he would not help that ticket.
The progressive dems don’t care about Pritzker being Harris’s running mate. They also don’t care about Biden being booted-out by the big donors after the primaries or about Harris running for president. One thing they don’t like is that Harris was a prosecutor. They care about their movement.
Chicago democrats are working to register voters, etc. in Wisconsin and Michigan. They already have workers, but they want more to sign-up and have a website for that.
The few people in Wisconsin, that I know, think Trump is the better candidate.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
He just isn’t going to fly on the national scene. He is not a likeable guy. Way too lefty especially in the Midwest. His track record for Illinois says it all. And voters are petty when it comes to physical appearance, and they don’t like short fat white guys.
It’s hard to believe the JB isn’t progressive enough.
Last place? Are we even looking at the same poll? He’s first from the bottom and he’s got nowhere else to go but up!
He has always been considered the dumb one in the family. There is a reason they never let him near the family business.
Yep, it happens in wealthy family’s. That’s why they’d never let William Clay Ford tough the Ford Motor Company. They had him run the Detroit Lions instead of the State of Michigan!
Would be interesting to see how he fared with IL public vs non public employees.
Pritzker, the petulant leftist extremist, has a national reputation for making IL worse than it was before he effectively lied and bought his way to the governorship. Pritzker is known for always telling whoppers. Pritzker doesn’t sell outside of Chicago, period.
Pritzker’s poor polling among leftist Democrats shows what an outlier IL is to most of America – Marxism doesn’t sell in America.
Hope you are right come election time…….harris is extremely dangerous for the country and living in general…..just look at what she did to calif a few years back
Remember Willie Brown?
In all fairness to JB, most of these voters don’t know his policy positions well enough to make an informed decision. If they did I’m confident he would have done worse.
That’s because they avoid telling you their positions till they get in office and them they zap everyone
Except for Zippy, he told us “ First we get the money “.
What a guy!
YEP and the uneducated still voted him in