'Looks like he's getting ready for a fight': Why JB Pritzker is slimming down

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‘Looks like he's getting ready for a fight’: Why JB Pritzker is slimming down

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‘Looks like he's getting ready for a fight’: Why JB Pritzker is slimming down

Pritzker, a potential 2028 presidential contender, would hardly be the first candidate to drop weight ahead of a campaign.

By Shia Kapos and Emily Schultheis 08/30/2025 07:00 AM EDT

CHICAGO — Gov. JB Pritzker doesn’t quite look the same on the campaign trail these days. His pants hang loose, his jacket buttons no longer strain — the Democrat known for his barrel-shaped frame cutting a noticeably trimmer silhouette in his bid for a third term.

“How about, just for health,” Pritzker said when POLITICO asked about his weight loss...................................



.........Everyone’s noticing. At an event in Los Angeles earlier this month, many attendees in the heavily Democratic audience said they’d come partly out of curiosity about whether the Midwestern governor could be their party’s next standardbearer. In a city famous for surface judgments, some said Pritzker’s trimmer look stood out.

“Yes, because the last really heavyweight president was William Taft,” one gray-haired attendee said, adding, “Excepting Donald Trump.”