JB Pritzker Is Ready to Party at a Convention He Made Happen

The request for a bid for the Democratic National Convention had been sitting unanswered in the office of Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago for two to three weeks in the summer of 2021 when Anne Caprara, the chief of staff to Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, burst into the governor’s office with a Politico article saying Chicago was being courted.

“Why wouldn’t Chicago do this?” Mr. Pritzker asked, according to his senior aides.

Three eventful years later, Chicago has a new mayor, the Democratic Party has a new standard-bearer, and the city is completing final preparations for the convention. Through it all, Mr. Pritzker has been the constant, the anchor to which the city’s effort has been tied.

In the days before the curtain is raised, the governor has been out and about in his hometown — in a tavern across from Wrigley Field chatting with the MSNBC host Jen Psaki, at Wrigley talking to convention volunteers, at a thank-you luncheon at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union hall on Saturday. On Sunday, he is set to appear at a Chicago taping of “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”

In short, the city might be the mayor’s, but the party this week will be the governor’s.

“I think his role can’t be overstated,” said State Representative Kam Buckner, an ally in the legislature and a rising star in Chicago politics. “The world is watching, and Governor Pritzker is acutely aware of that.”

The political stakes of the convention changed for Mr. Pritzker after President Biden’s decision to drop out of the race and the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the ticket.

After the Republican convention in July, when former President Donald J. Trump appeared poised to thwart Mr. Biden’s re-election, the Chicago gathering was expected to be as much a tryout for 2028 Democratic presidential hopefuls as a send-off for Mr. Biden.

With a deep Democratic bench jockeying for the spotlight, Mr. Pritzker was to have home-field advantage to showcase his long list of progressive achievements in Illinois, including enshrining abortion rights and banning assault weapons, and to flaunt his political skills. He even commissioned his own JBeers — craft brews just for the convention, bearing his initials.

“In Illinois, Democrats deliver,” Mr. Pritzker said in an email, when asked about his pitch for the convention.

There was even talk that if a late crisis hit Mr. Biden, Mr. Pritzker, with a net worth estimated around $3.5 billion, would be the Democrats’ “break glass” candidate, one of the few politicians who could step in and quickly stand up a presidential run.

That crisis did hit, but instead of turning to a billionaire governor, the party immediately coalesced around Vice President Harris. Now, any talk of new faces for the next presidential election is on the back burner. And the pressure on Mr. Pritzker is to pull off a smooth, exuberant show — even as tens of thousands of protesters in the city serve as a reminder of the disastrous Chicago convention of 1968, when police clashes with demonstrators dominated the headlines.

“When it comes to 2024, now, I actually think there’s more at stake,” said State Representative Margaret Croke, who came up in Illinois politics through Mr. Pritzker’s political apparatus, “because so many more people are going to be paying attention to the convention.”

It was a peculiar set of political circumstances that put Mr. Pritzker on center stage this week. At the time the party was looking for a convention host, Ms. Lightfoot was fighting for her political life. On Feb. 28, 2023, as the Democratic National Committee was closing in on its convention decision, Ms. Lightfoot lost her bid for a second term, failing even to make the runoff.

With Atlanta pressing hard for the convention, the two bitter rivals in Chicago’s mayoral runoff, Brandon Johnson, a young, unseasoned progressive, and Paul Vallas, his much more conservative opponent, had to put aside their differences to write a letter to the D.N.C., reassuring the party that both men wanted the convention in Chicago.

On April 4, 2023, the city elected Mr. Johnson, and just a week later, the party announced that Chicago had been selected to host the convention. Filling the power vacuum in the nation’s third-largest city was Mr. Pritzker, an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune.

“JB was the constant in all that,” Ms. Croke said. “That was really important for the D.N.C. to know they would be working with the same team, even through all that change.”

The governor and the state’s junior senator, Tammy Duckworth, were crucial in winning the convention and have led the planning process.

Local officials also played key roles. During the mayoral transition, Ms. Lightfoot secured a critical line of credit for the city. Representative Mike Quigley, a Chicago Democrat, and Ms. Duckworth helped secure $20 million for security from Congress, money that will help the Chicago Police Department for years to come. Billboards around the city have gone up to tout the state’s balanced budgets, enshrined abortion care and gun control laws.

“Elected officials came together to put Chicago on the national stage,” the governor said on Friday, “because we love this city.”

While there was less excitement for a Biden-focused convention, playing host to a convention brimming with optimism behind a new candidate is a good thing for the city, said David Axelrod, a Democratic strategist synonymous with Chicago politics.

“It’s always good to be the host of a party that people feel good about,” Mr. Axelrod said.

To some critics, Mr. Pritzker is most adept at ensuring he gets credit for success while Chicago’s mayor gets blame for faults or failures. Ms. Lightfoot, who had a prickly relationship with the governor, declined to be interviewed, but two former top aides to the mayor, speaking on condition of anonymity to not inject discord at a time when Democrats are trying to project unity, bristled at the notion that Ms. Lightfoot had dropped the ball in the bid stage or had ceded responsibility to the governor and Senator Duckworth.

Plenty can still go wrong. Fears that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas would deluge Chicago with busloads of migrants have subsided as the Biden administration’s clampdown on asylum slowed the flow at the U.S.-Mexico border. But activists for a variety of issues — but mainly the war in Gaza — are still promising to shut the convention down.

Mayor Johnson, a former teacher’s union leader who has spoken proudly of his own protest days, has promised to treat demonstrators fairly and to avoid the police violence of 1968. But he still needs to maintain control.

For now, Governor Pritzker is just happy the convention is finally here. Ms. Caprara, his chief of staff, remembered that she and Mr. Pritzker were in Boston in April 2023, visiting Quentin Fulks, who had been deputy manager of Mr. Pritzker’s 2018 campaign for governor. Mr. Fulks was out of politics at the time as a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, and Mr. Pritzker had taken him and his chief of staff to breakfast.

At the table, the governor’s cellphone rang. He fumbled with it comically, got it to his ear and then mouthed: “It’s the president.” Mr. Biden asked, “Are you ready to party in Chicago?”

His bid had won.