* Press release…

Ready for the Fight, a new political action committee that will support Democratic candidates and organizations across the nation, taking the fight directly to Donald Trump and the most extreme MAGA Republicans, launched today. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker will serve as Honorary Chair.

The new PAC will ensure Democrats competing in districts that Trump won will have the resources and support to fight MAGA candidates who put their fealty to Donald Trump above delivering for the people of their districts.

* Politico…

A new political action committee chaired by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker plans to invest at least $20 million aimed at boosting Democratic House candidates for the midterms while also expanding his national political footprint ahead of a potential 2028 presidential run. […]

The [Ready for the Fight” PAC] plans to reserve air time against the embattled Rep. Max Miller in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District and Brandon Herrera, a Republican candidate in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District. Both are running in Republican-leaning districts, but Pritzker sees an opening, arguing they’re weak candidates facing a Democrat-friendly national climate. […]

The Ready for The Fight PAC marks Pritzker’s latest move from Illinois governor to national Democratic figure. He is one of the country’s wealthiest elected officials and has increasingly used his fortune and campaign apparatus to position himself as a Democratic counterweight to Trump. Pritzker also supports the Think Big America nonprofit that started as a group advocating for reproductive rights and has expanded to issues related to working families.

* Gov. Pritzker was asked about the new PAC during an unrelated press conference today…

Reporter: Ready for the Fight PAC launched today. You’re chairing it, funding it. What would you say to those who say that demonstrates a greater interest in national politics than here in Illinois?

Pritzker: Well, that’s silly. As you know, I’ve been supporting candidates all across the country for many, many years, long before I was governor. This is perhaps the most important year ever for us to elect Democrats to Congress, and that’s what I want to help do. Because what’s good for the state of Illinois is if we have a Democratic Congress. The Congress currently, following Donald Trump, has been awful for the state of Illinois. We’ve lost SNAP funding. We’ve lost Medicaid funding, so many things that we’ve needed. FEMA has been defunded, and with all the storms that have hit the state of Illinois, we need the Congress to step up to at least push back on the president of the United States, if not to reach some compromise over the next couple of years, so that we can have funding restored to the states, particularly the state of Illinois.

Reporter: And why some of those there are some districts that are identified with Max Miller’s district, a few others that seem like are more kind of push districts, a little bit Trumpier than maybe some of the swing districts that are in contention. Why some of those districts instead of some that maybe a little bit easier for Democrats to flip?

Pritzker: Well, I think that the ones that are easier to flip are certainly attracting all the attention and a lot of the resources, and so I wanted to be helpful in these last eight weeks in those districts where I think maybe we can just push people a little bit over the top. They may be in districts that are R+5 or R+7, where perhaps because of the national mood and the desire for change will lead to a Democrat getting elected in a district that you might not have otherwise expected. So that’s where we’re focusing our resources. But having said that, in districts that are more swingy, we’ll certainly also perhaps play a role wherever we can.

Please pardon any transcription errors.

* Meanwhile, from the Pritzker campaign…

Tomorrow, Governor JB Pritzker will join Texas Democrats to hold a press conference ahead of the RNC Convention in Dallas, Texas. He will highlight the chaos, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration.

This is the latest example of Gov. Pritzker’s solidarity with the Texas Democratic Party. In August 2025, he welcomed the 40 Texas Democratic lawmakers who went to Illinois to deny Texas Republicans the quorum necessary to pass new congressional maps that marginalized minority voters.

* Related…

* Tribune | Labor Day kicks off Illinois’ fall campaign season with distractions becoming a leading theme: Pritzker, by contrast, an entrepreneur and an heir to the Hyatt hotels fortune, has put nearly $440 million of his own wealth into his campaign fund since his first winning bid for governor in 2018, including $65 million last month. In that time period, he has spent $375 million.

* NOTUS | Pritzker Jumps Into Midterms Money Battle With New $20M PAC: Pritzker’s Ready for the Fight PAC — a phrase often used by the governor and repeated liberally in the committee’s first ad spot — plans to invest at least $20 million in what it considers to be overlooked and competitive races, according to Politico, which reported first on the spending push. The committee will soon target what it deems “the worst of the worst MAGA Republicans,” with ad reservations against Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), who’s facing allegations of domestic abuse, and Texas’ Brandon Herrera, an incendiary internet personality who specializes in firearms and calls himself the “AK Guy.”

* NYT | Pritzker, Eyeing 2028, to Help Midterm Democrats With a $20 Million Group: Mr. Herrera’s district favored President Trump by 15 percentage points in 2024, but Democrats say that the Republican nominee’s history of incendiary comments will give them an opening. Mr. Trump won by 11 points in Mr. Miller’s district in the Cleveland suburbs two years ago, but nonpartisan analysts have shifted categorizations of the race from “likely Republican” to “tossup” to reflect the challenges he could face in overcoming the allegations of abuse, which he has denied.