CHICAGO — Rahm Emanuel admits the potential of taking on JB Pritzker in a 2028 presidential run is “going to be awkward.”
Over decades in public life, Emanuel has had stints as White House chief of staff, congressman, cutthroat Democratic operative, overseas diplomat and more.
But around here, it’s a little more simple. Emanuel was a two-term Chicago mayor. Pritzker is a two-term Illinois governor. If the two end up as part of the 2028 Democratic presidential field, the longtime allies will inevitably bump up against each other — and like most political fights, it could get ugly.
“Look, JB and I are friends,” Emanuel said in an interview. The two recently had dinner, he noted. They text. When Emanuel came into town in his capacity as U.S. ambassador to Japan, they made a point of getting breakfast. “We’re going to continue to be friends, but if we’re running for the same position, it will be awkward.”
(Asked to expound on what would make it awkward, the famously unguarded Emanuel said, “It’s so f—–g — it’s self-evident, Jesus Christ.”)
When Pritzker was a private citizen and Emanuel served as mayor, the two collaborated on bringing tech incubator 1871 to the city. While serving in Japan, Emanuel worked with Pritzker on bringing quantum computing to the University of Chicago, he said.
The sun set on Emanuel’s mayoralty in 2019, after the controversial handling of the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. At one point, some had even written Emanuel’s political obituary.
Pritzker, a billionaire, emerged as governor in the meantime and positioned himself as a fighter in the Trump resistance, with a penchant for grabbing headlines — and making investments in battleground states — that looked like it was leading to an inevitable White House run. Locally, Pritzker wrested control of the state party and has built a formidable organizing operation.
Now though, Emanuel is back stateside and back in politics, running through the national podcast circuit. Some observers are pointing to his prickly exterior and unvarnished criticisms of his own party as perhaps a good fit for the moment.
His open exploration of a presidential run allowed him to leap in front of Pritzker, who is ensconced in a daily waiting game, neither saying he’s running for a third term as governor (though he’s expected to do so soon) nor admitting aspirations to enter the 2028 presidential fray (though he has made notable visits to some states that voted early in the last primary).
Emanuel, 65, noted any 2028 presidential race is bound to be crowded, and he said he would set himself apart by leaning on accumulated experience through the wide-ranging roles he’s held over the years. That spans from heading party-line brawls on Capitol Hill to working in two White Houses (Barack Obama’s and Bill Clinton’s) to his private-sector stint as an investment banker. It’s among the attributes he believes could underpin an argument to be the nation’s chief executive.
Emanuel points to two overarching qualities that he said would set him apart. The first, he said, is having taken on a host of industries over the years to forge new laws or to pressure them into reform. He ticked off going after insurance companies, helping impose regulations around banking, suing pharmaceutical companies over opiates and clashing with the NRA to get an assault weapons ban.
The second is having experience in every corridor of power inside and outside of government, while also having up-close brushes with public tragedy and grief that come with the job of being mayor.
“You have to be comfortable in the boardroom, and you have to be comfortable in the Situation Room, and sometimes you have to be really comfortable in the emergency room. And I think I know all those spaces,” Emanuel said of being president. “JB is a friend, as is [Pennsylvania Gov.] Josh Shapiro, as is [California] Gov. [Gavin] Newsom. … And so they’ll offer what they have, and I’ll offer what I have.”
“I think I know something, from the Situation Room to the emergency room to the classroom to the boardroom to the family room,” he continued. “The problem for Democrats over the last four years is they got comfortable only in the bathroom and the locker room.”
Emanuel, in his spree of media interviews this year, often complained that Democrats focused too heavily on issues like gender and bathroom access and not enough on improving education and the bottom line for middle-class families.
That’s a natural dividing line between him and Pritzker, who has unapologetically embraced getting into those kinds of political-cultural battles.
“Voters didn’t turn out for Democrats last November not because they don’t want us to fight for our values, but because they think we don’t want to fight for our values,” Pritzker said in April at a Democratic Party dinner in New Hampshire.
If Emanuel has an interest in his own run for governor — as Pritzker stated in a CNN interview in May — he doesn’t publicly entertain it.
“My assumption is he’s running for governor. … I’d be surprised if he doesn’t,” Emanuel said.
He added: “We have a great state. We have big challenges, and they can’t be ignored.”
That leads back to the “awkward” part. If Pritzker formally launches into a third gubernatorial campaign — as some political observers, Emanuel included, believe he will — Pritzker will be stuck in a way that Emanuel isn’t.
Pritzker can hardly publicly indulge presidential ambitions as he’s facing daily budget worries or battling the Trump White House on deportations.
By the November 2026 gubernatorial election, Emanuel and other Democratic presidential hopefuls may be leaps and bounds ahead of Pritzker on the national campaign trail.
“You give Rahm Emanuel a year and five months’ head start and you think you’re going to push him out? That’s cuckoo,” said a Democratic strategist who has worked on multiple presidential campaigns and asked for anonymity to speak bluntly. “It tells me he doesn’t know Rahm and maybe he doesn’t know himself.”
A second Democratic strategist countered, “Pritzker is always going to win that fight because he’s a Pritzker.”
A Pritzker ally, meanwhile, argued that it was Emanuel who could face his own hurdles, including having moved too far from the left, inviting struggle in a Democratic primary.
Short of bowing out from seeking a third term, Pritzker could confront political circumstances similar to those of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who first sought re-election as governor and then, shortly after the first legislative session following that victory, launched a 2024 GOP presidential primary campaign. DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race after a stinging defeat in Iowa.
As Pritzker contends with those dynamics, Emanuel is moving forward exploring his message.
“If I decide to run, and if I was fortunate enough to serve, the only interest group I would focus on is the middle class and their American dream, and their children’s shot at it,” Emanuel said. “That is No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 focus.”
