Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said he wasn’t surprised Madison County voted last week to approve an advisory referendum about forming a new state separate from the Chicago area.
“I think people express their frustrations in a variety of ways,” Prtizker said at an unrelated event in Alton on Thursday. “This is not something that will actually make any change in the state of Illinois.”
Voters in the Metro East county made it the 33rd in downstate Illinois to approve the symbolic measure about exploring the possibility of seceding to form a new state without Cook County, home to Chicago and some of its suburbs.
Madison was also the first suburban county to pass the measure — 56.5% to 43.5% — in last week’s election.
All the other counties had been rural, largely concentrated in southeast Illinois prior to the 2024 election, when six other counties also passed the referendums by wide margins. Secession proponents say its passage sends a message about their dissatisfaction with a lack of representation in state government.
President-elect Donald Trump won Madison County by 13 percentage points last week, Pritzker noted.
“I know that Madison County didn't vote for my candidate for president, so I'm not surprised that it voted as it did on the referendum,” said Pritzker, who was considered to be a vice presidential candidate for failed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
In preparation to combat the Trump administration, Pritzker and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, another Democrat, recently announced the formation of a group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
The blue-state governors had been ardent critics of Trump during his first term in office. Although it’s not exactly clear what the group will do, Pritzker and Polis said they will work with legal experts and advocates to protect state-level Democratic institutions.
“We also want to make sure that the federal government is treating the states appropriately — as it has traditionally,” Pritzker said on Thursday. “We have state’s powers; they have federal government powers.”
The second-term Democrat also said he has not met future Missouri Gov.-elect Mike Kehoe, a Republican, but he plans to do so.
“I look forward to the opportunity not just to talk but also to meet,” he said.
