Pritzker peppered with questions about party rift

Gov. JB Pritzker held a media availability today during Governor’s Day at the Illinois State Fair. Please pardon all transcription errors and many thanks to Rachel Hinton for the audio…

Q: Governor, you do have a [Democratic] contender, possibly. Beverly Miles. She said that she’s willing to debate you. Will you debate her in the Democratic primary?

A: Well, I look forward to having the opportunity to meet her. I don’t know her. But I do want to honor her service to our country, serving in the military as she has. And I look forward to the opportunity to get to know her.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing Democrats in this next election?

A: Look, I think, as far as I’m concerned, we’ve got a terrific record to run on, Democrats up and down the ticket. So we’ve got a lot to show people about why Democrats are better than Republicans at running the state. We’re the ones who got credit upgrades for the state. The Republicans, credit downgrades for years. We’re the ones who’ve been fighting for a woman’s right to choose, we’re the ones who’ve been working to increase mental health funding to make sure that people have a place to go when they’ve been subject to substance abuse. There’s so many things that we’ve got to do to build back up services that people lost as a result of Republicans, we’re continuing to do that. I’m excited about the fact that it is less expensive to go tuition-wise to go to college in Illinois now than it was when I took office. We’ve got more work to do there, too. So I hope everybody will know all across the state, Democrats stand for education, health care, making sure that people are safe across our state from this deadly pandemic.

Q: Are you 100 percent comfortable legally giving money to DPI now that the new committee structure is in place? Are you going to continue holding off?

A: Well, I’m excited about our Blue Wave Illinois, you know, we’re all working together to make sure we elect Democrats up and down the ticket. I did that in 2018, continued to support Democrats everywhere in our state. I’m going to do that.

Read more: https://capitolfax.com/2021/08/18/pritzker-peppered-with-questions-about-party-rift/