Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker will announce Thursday that he will seek a third term next year, answering a question about his immediate political future but leaving unanswered whether he will pursue a longer-term goal of running for president in 2028.

Multiple sources close to Pritzker’s campaign confirmed to the Tribune Tuesday that the governor will make the announcement at in-person events in Chicago and Springfield, though exact details of what it will entail have not yet been finalized. Democratic supporters on Monday were invited to a campaign announcement for Pritzker but were not told the details.

He is the first incumbent governor to seek a third term as chief executive since the late former Republican Gov. James R. Thompson, who went on to serve four terms. Illinois has no term limits on its constitutional offices.

Pritzker’s decision becomes the most significant in a series of moves in the early 2026 political season that is poised to remake Illinois’ political landscape. The generational domino effect has already seen longtime politicians opt to retire or pursue higher office, moves that have created new openings for political ladder-climbers beneath them.

But the governor’s move also allows Illinois’ ruling Democrats to breathe a sigh of relief, leaving in place the powerful billionaire force who has led them both politically and financially for the past 6 ½ years. It also helps the party avoid the prospect of a fractious, contentious and costly primary battle to succeed him.

With his two-term running mate, Juliana Stratton, among the contenders seeking to replace retiring senior U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, Pritzker does have to decide who will join him on the ticket as a lieutenant governor candidate — and who has his confidence to succeed him if he embarks on a successful presidential bid.

Pritzker spent $350 million of his own wealth in his two successful runs for governor and heavily invested in the state Democratic Party that he funded and controlled. He has spent tens of millions of dollars on building up the state Democratic Party, local ward, township and county organizations, and contributed to the leadership funds of House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Senate President Don Harmon to ensure state legislative supermajorities.

Republicans had their run with a wealthy benefactor, one-term venture capitalist Gov. Bruce Rauner. But the businessman had trouble understanding government and politics, lost GOP support and was easily defeated by Pritzker in 2018. With Rauner gone, the state GOP and its legislative leaders have seen his money dry up and have been at a serious financial disadvantage ever since.

Pritzker, a 60-year-old entrepreneur and heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, is one of the nation’s wealthiest politicians, with a net worth of $3.7 billion, according to Forbes. President Donald Trump is estimated by Forbes to be worth $5.5 billion.

Pritzker has yet to formally declare an interest in the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. But his actions over the past year suggest presidential ambitions as he has sought to expand his national footprint.

In 2023, he founded a national organization to advocate for abortion rights in the states. And that same year, he played a key role in bringing the 2024 Democratic National Convention to Chicago, where last year he played host to party leaders from across the country. But it was Pritzker’s February State of the State address to state lawmakers — one month into Trump’s second term — where he gained national attention by likening the rise of the Trump 2.0 era to Nazism in 1930s Germany.

“I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly,” said Pritzker, who is Jewish and helped found the state’s Holocaust Museum. He added that he was “watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now.”

Pritzker’s speech, which occurred as national Democrats were largely leaderless in countering and criticizing Trump’s early chaotic presidential moves, aimed to fill the vacuum and garnered significant attention by offering a searing response to the president for a national audience.

The speech quickly launched Pritzker into national media interviews ranging from traditional print, broadcast and cable outlets to “The View” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” as well as myriad podcasts. He also became a featured keynote speaker for some state Democratic organizations, including an April appearance in New Hampshire, where he called for “mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption” against Republicans to protest the Trump administration.

“These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace,” he said. “They must understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soap box and then punish them at the ballot box.”

The Trump administration and allied Republicans criticized Pritzker for fomenting violence, something the Democratic governor called absurd coming from a president who helped incite the deadly U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, that was aimed at blocking Trump’s election loss.

Pritzker has described his increased national visibility as an attempt to showcase Illinois as a bulwark against the president’s policies rather than seeds for a future presidential campaign.

“There are things going on outside of the state of Illinois that have terrible negative effects on the people of Illinois, and I’m talking about what’s happening in Washington, D.C.,” he said May 25. “So the purpose, of course, is to make sure that we’re having our voices heard, that we’re impacting the federal discussion, and hopefully preserving the services that people in Illinois have frankly paid for and deserve.”

Chicago Tribune’s Jeremy Gorner contributed.