Morgan County Democrats host gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker

By Gary Scott on November 28, 2017 at 12:33pm

Last night, local Democrats met in the fireside room at Hamilton’s at 110 North East in Jacksonville.       Many supporters of the Democratic party, and those interested in hearing more about Democratic candidates were in attendance at last night’s meeting.

The Morgan County Democrats also had a special guest speaker for last night’s event as well, JB Pritzker. Pritzker, who is running for Governor, also brought along his running mate Juliana Stratton. WLDS/WEAI News got the chance to speak with Pritzker and Stratton before they took to the podium to address the crowd, and Pritzker explains his purpose for the stop in Jacksonville.

“First of all, we’re trying to rebuild, all across the state, the infrastructure of the Democratic party so that we can get our voters out to vote in the general election and make sure that we energize our base. Being here allows us to speak with folks in Jacksonville and Morgan County who are engaged with Democratic candidates and the Democratic party and all the grassroots that we need to win this general election against Bruce Rauner,” says Pritzker.

Pritzker, who is from the Chicago area, explains what how he plans on helping the rest of the state.

“We’ve put out a plan to create jobs, in fact, here in Jacksonville and all across central and southern Illinois that includes not only infrastructure investment by the state, but we also need to help small businesses get started and grow. (Small businesses) are the creators of most jobs in the state of Illinois. We want to have universal, high-speed broadband across the state of Illinois to make sure people are able to start small businesses using broadband, but also we want to make sure that we’ve got small business loan funds at the state level,” Pritzker says.

Morgan County Democrats were not the only political group to hold an event last night, Morgan County Republicans were hosting a meeting in the South Side ballroom at Hamilton’s. Pritzker tells us he hopes to be a Governor for both sides of the aisle.

“I intend to be governor for all of the people of Illinois, and so I certainly want to win votes from Republicans just like I do Democrats. We have a Democratic primary coming up, but beyond that primary it’s going to be incumbent upon us to go out and win not only our Democratic votes but independent votes and Republicans. Republicans and Democrats both need somebody in the governor’s office who will represent them and actually create jobs and expand healthcare and education in the state,” says Pritzker.

Pritzker is officially on the ballot for the Democratic gubernatorial race in Illinois, having filed his paperwork yesterday morning with the Illinois Board of Elections.