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But in Pritzker’s
case, his long-standing affiliation with the pro-Israel lobby—never a
secret—doesn’t necessarily doom him. In response to the Gaza war, Pritzker
seems to be revising his views about Israel, and his recent statements
demonstrate, perhaps, a changing position. He has cautiously staked out a place
on the party’s left flank, endorsing Sanders’s bill for arms sanctions, for instance. Unlike
Newsom or Shapiro, he did not implement new state laws in Illinois cracking
down on campus speech in response to the Gaza encampments of 2024. Tellingly,
throughout his career, Pritzker has movingly emphasized the horror of the Holocaust—the
extermination of European Jewry—rather than cheerleading for Israeli Jewish
nationalism. In an extended interview with the Christian Science Monitor, during which he
gave the reporter a tour of the Illinois Holocaust Museum, he noted that too
little had been done to protect innocent Palestinians, a view he has now
expressed in multiple statements. He was even more explicit on a recent episode
of the popular I’ve Had It podcast, saying that as a Jew
committed to upholding the values of social justice and people’s freedom, “I
have to apply that equally to the state of Israel as I do to other countries
that have committed atrocities.” From being an “unequivocal” supporter of
Israel in the immediate aftermath of October 7, he has taken a much more
skeptical view.

Squint, and you can
see the outline of a political strategy begin to take shape. Pritzker, citing
his own previous affiliation with AIPAC, could say that the party must find the
courage to change course. One could imagine Pritzker giving a major speech along
the lines of Obama’s famous Philadelphia speech on American racism, one that
outlines his familial background, study of the Holocaust, and universalist
ethos, and concludes by saying that continued, unconditional support of Israel
by the Democrats would violate those very principles. He has flown to these rhetorical heights in the past. To quote
one memorable line from his 2025 State of the State address, “If we don’t want
to repeat history—then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough
to learn from it.” Of the politicians we have surveyed, his shift would be the
most forceful, and it would have an organic power that no non-Jewish candidate
could match.  

Furthermore, as a
billionaire, Pritzker doesn’t need the support of an organization like AIPAC
(which spent more than $53 million in the 2024 election cycle in
campaigns across the country) or wealthy Democratic donors for whom maintaining
the Biden-Harris status-quo policies was a threshold issue. He has spent the
past several decades leveraging his own wealth to support Democrats across the
country, and if he does change his stance on Israel, his dual identity as a
donor and a major candidate can shift the giving patterns of other donor
organizations. A real-life blackjack shark, Pritzker’s side of the table
is full of chits owed to him on account of this largesse. His wealth gives him
flexibility and national reach, and his past positions give him credibility.
Moreover, it might be easier for Pritzker to blow off the anxious calls of
Chuck Schumer or Reid Hoffman than a politician who hasn’t spent a lifetime in
the orbit of the powerful and influential.