Pritzker Burning Through Money Almost 3 Times Faster Than Rauner

CHICAGO — The deep-pocketed major party Illinois gubernatorial nominees submitted their first quarterly reports since securing their nominations earlier this month in what's on track to become the priciest governor's race in U.S. history. Second quarter filings with the Illinois State Board of Elections reveal the campaign of billionaire Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker is spending money at nearly three times the rate of incumbent Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner – about $190,000 a day between April 1 and Monday.

In the 2018 Illinois governor's race, combined spending from Rauner and Pritzker has exceeded $160 million as of July 17, according to state filings. Pritzker, a billionaire venture capitalist and heir to the Hyatt fortune, has given himself $100 million of his own money in the race in the past 18 months. Rauner, who made dozens of millions of dollars a year as the chairman of a private equity company, has given his campaign $57.5 million and received a $20 million boost from local hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin.

The most expensive governor's race in U.S. history so far has been the 2010 California contest between Republican Meg Whitman, who broke former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's self-financing record spending about $150 million of her own money in an unsuccessful bid to unseat Democratic incumbent Jerry Brown. That race cost $280 million in total, according to the Associated Press.

By comparison, Illinois' previous gubernatorial election cost $112 million, as Rauner's record-breaking 2014 spending of $65.3 million – $36 per vote to defeat former Gov. Pat Quinn – seems like a relative bargain compared to the going rate this election.

According to a Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll conducted between June 9 and 11, Pritzker holds a single-digit lead over Rauner, 36-27, with 26 percent choosing an unspecified third-party candidate and 11 percent undecided. The poll indicated the race has tightened since an April head-to-head poll that showed Pritzker with an 18-point lead.

Rauner's committee, Citizens for Rauner, Inc., spent $7.8 million last quarter after starting with more than $38.5 million in hand. It reported Monday it ended it with nearly $31.8 million in its coffers, according to the state board of elections.

The governor's campaign raised a little more than a $1 million in the second quarter. Its top five largest donors since April 1 have included $200,000 from CEO Donald J. Edwards with $200,000, investment banker Kent Dauten and attorney James Sprayregen each with $100,000 and CEO Andrew Berlin with $75,000.

Pritzker gave his campaign another $30 million last quarter after having given himself $76 million in the course of securing the Democratic Party nomination by 20 points at a cost of $119 per vote. His campaign committee, JB for Governor, started April with just over $8 million in the bank and spent more than $20 million in the quarter. He had more than $18 million remaining in his committee's account but has shown zero indication he will not cut himself another eight-figure check.

Pritzker's campaign also dished out over $3.2 million in transfers to other Illinois political committees including a $1 million each to House Speaker Mike Madigan's Democratic Majority fund and the Rock Island County Democratic Central Committee.

Rauner's campaign spent less than half as much on advertising as Pritzker last quarter. According to the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, Pritzker's campaign has now given $38 million alone to a single media production company, Philadelphia-based Shorr, Johnson, Magnus Strategic Media. Pritzker has also spent handsomely on salaries – with more than $8.4 million to date on payroll, not counting consultants.

Last quarter it also spent $650,000 on polling, $625,000 on airline flights and made a seemingly symbolic $100,000 donation to a Texas-based immigration advocacy center, Politico Illinois pointed out. Meanwhile, the Pritzker campaign has continued to broadcast an ad ruled false and misleading by fact checkers and reporters claiming the Illinois governor is "profiting" off of the Trump Administration's immigration crackdown through his "blind trust.

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Other candidates who will appear on the ballot include ex-Republican Sam McCann, who running as with the "Conservative Party" he founded this year just the purposes of this election in an apparent anti-Rauner vendetta. His McCann for Illinois campaign took in $220,000, mainly from Jim Sweeney's International Union Of Operating Engineers Local 150, which has endorsed Pritzker.

Libertarian candidate Gray "Kash" Jackson, a Navy veteran and father's rights advocate declared in contempt facing potential jail time in Lake County if he does not pay his ex-wife more than $3,000 by Aug. 6, ended the quarter with $985.32 in the account of his Citizens for Kash Jackson campaign. The 39-year-old Antioch resident spent less than $5,600 last quarter, mostly on Facebook ads.

In the Illinois attorney general's race state Sen. Kwame Raoul's Raoul for Illinois committee is more than doubling the spending of Champaign attorney Erika Harold's Citizens for Erika Harold and ending the quarter with more than three times as much money in the bank. Most of Raoul's largest contibutions have come from unions.

A Super PAC headed by Sweeney that allocated more than $1.5 million toward's Raoul's narrow victory over Quinn broke spending limits when it made a $255,000 contribution to the Chicago Democrat's campaign on June 26, according to the Illinois Campaign of Political Reform.