Capitol News Illinois photo by Peter Hancock
Newsom, Emanuel argue the party is focusing too much on ‘bathroom’ issues
By Ben Szalinski | Capitol News Illinois
When Gov. JB Pritzker tells audiences how he became interested in politics, it often starts with stories about his mother.
As a child growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Pritzker often shares, he’d attend marches, rallies and protests with his mother in support of abortion, women’s rights and LGBTQ issues. Those experiences, Pritzker says, set the foundation for many of his progressive beliefs.
“I’m living proof that introducing your kids to the gay agenda might result in them growing up to be governor,” Pritzker told a crowd at a Human Rights Campaign event in Los Angeles in March.
Pritzker has made supporting LGBTQ rights a regular part of his platform as governor, including speaking at dinner events for the HRC and Equality Illinois in recent months. He’s set to speak to the New Hampshire Democratic Party on Sunday – one of the first Democratic presidential primary states.
But some Democrats, who are often named as possible 2028 Democratic presidential candidates alongside Pritzker, think the party needs to talk less about LGBTQ issues such as transgender athletes.
“We weren’t good on the kitchen table issues; we weren’t really good on the family room — the only room we really did well on in the house was the bathroom,” former ambassador to Japan and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said on a podcast with California Gov. Gavin Newsom last week. “We not only look like we were on the cultural periphery, we look like that’s what was front and center for us.”
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