Florida Chamber gives JB Pritzker ‘runner-up’ for – Business News
EXCLUSIVE: Whether heading into Chicago or leaving it behind on the Stevenson Expressway, commuters are driving previous a new billboard marketing campaign from Florida’s high business foyer.
Expanding its multimillion-dollar recruitment marketing campaign into the Midwest, the Florida Chamber of Commerce is launching its subsequent “Free Enterprise” billboard marketing campaign concentrating on Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker because the Chamber says knowledge reveals billions of {dollars} in income transferring from Illinois to Florida.
“The billboards will look very much like the billboard we did in New York, but we’ll have two of them in Chicago, and we’ll be naming Governor Pritzker the runner-up ‘Florida Economic Developer of the Year,’” Florida Chamber President and CEO Mark Wilson completely instructed Fox News Digital.
“This isn’t personal, right? This is about policy. And the person responsible for all of Illinois’s policies is the governor there, just like our governor in Florida has top responsibility for what we do here,” he added. “When we look at how unsafe Chicago is, when we look at the extraordinarily high taxes that we have in Chicago — I’m from there, by the way, and so I have firsthand knowledge on what’s happening in Illinois and what’s happening in Chicago… And all of Illinois is losing people, more businesses are leaving Illinois than are moving to Illinois, and Illinois is losing billions of taxable income. And so the whole state is in a death spiral.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at a Texas Democratic Party press convention forward of the Republican National Convention, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Dallas. AP Photo/Gabriela Passos
An image of Pritzker shrugging might be seen on billboards dealing with site visitors in each instructions alongside I-55, with the advertisements naming him runner-up and thanking him for jobs transferring to Florida. Their launch comes simply over one month after the Chamber named New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani Florida’s “Economic Developer of the Year” as half of a Times Square marketing campaign. The Chamber says the campaigns are supposed to argue that progressive tax and financial insurance policies encourage wealth, companies and households to maneuver to Florida.
“Everything we do is scorecard driven, and we follow the data,” Wilson stated when requested why Chicago was the following stop on the marketing campaign. “New York earned the number one spot, and if you look at the data, Illinois earns the number two spot… Florida’s grown by about 1.9 million residents and Illinois’s lost [75,000] or 100,000 residents over the same period of time… When we look at taxable income that’s moved from Illinois to Florida, it’s over $2 billion that has left Illinois and relocated to Florida.”
Wilson additionally pointed to high-profile company exits from Chicago — most notably billionaire Ken Griffin transferring hedge fund giant Citadel to Miami — as proof for his argument that crime and tax burdens can drive employers out of the state.
Visitors pose for pictures in entrance of the Cloud Gate sculpture because it displays the skyline in Chicago, Illinois, Thursday, August 1, 2024. AFP by way of Getty Images
“When bullet holes emerged in the Citadel building in Chicago, that was sort of one of the straws, right? You can’t decriminalize things and then tell everybody you have a safer community… people don’t buy that, and it’s not true,” the CEO famous.
“They’re raising taxes on the very people that are investing in manufacturing, they’re investing in the community. And in fact, people like Ken Griffin are investing hundreds of millions of dollars and philanthropy into public education into making our communities safer,” he continued. “This is about: bad policy in Illinois is moving Illinois in the wrong direction. It’s made Illinois less safe, it’s made it less competitive, and it’s made it a more expensive place to be.”
The marketing campaign isn’t simply concentrating on hedge funds and billionaires — Wilson stated the Chamber is straight courting Illinois’ superior manufacturing, aviation and tech startup sectors.
“Advanced manufacturing, for example, is one of our top priorities in Florida. We’re one of the only states with a chief manufacturing officer,” Wilson defined. “Florida is currently the No. 1 state in the country for new business startups. So as people are coming up with good ideas in Illinois only to have their government policies quash them, we want them to know that they’re more than welcome here in the Sunshine State.”
A new billboard marketing campaign that names NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani Florida’s “Economic Developer of the Year” is proven at Times Square at 1500 Broadway and West forty third Street in Manhattan, New York, Monday, August 10, 2026. Brigitte Stelzer for NY Post
According to Wilson, the initial Times Square marketing campaign pushed the Chamber’s total earned-media valuation to more than $100 million. While he declined to reveal how a lot the Chamber is spending on the billboards, he stated, “it takes millions of dollars a year to do what the Florida Chamber of Commerce does.”
“In Illinois, what we’re hoping is that the governor’s office reflects on the data,” Wilson stated. “Illinois has half as many people as Florida, but their budget and their debt is significantly larger than Florida… And what we hope to hear is that Illinois wants to take us up on our offer to join forces and introduce free enterprise into every aspect of Illinois. The people of Illinois deserve that. The businesses of Illinois deserve that.”
Gov. Pritzker didn’t instantly reply to Fox News Digital’s request for remark.
Looking forward, Wilson acknowledged that Florida’s fast financial increase brings a heavy accountability for state and business leaders to keep away from the very pitfalls presently plaguing northern hubs.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker arrives for the fifty fifth Annual twenty sixth Street Mexican Independence Day parade in Chicago, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026. AFP by way of Getty Images
“The biggest risk to the Florida model is that we allow to happen in Florida, what leaders in Illinois, New York and California allowed to happen there,” Wilson warned. “If you go back a few decades, California was a national leader. Everybody wanted to be like California… and they let it go.”
Wilson stated Florida’s growth brings a accountability for state and business leaders to keep away from issues he sees in states together with Illinois, New York and California.
“I often hear a refrain of, ‘Hey, at least we’re not Illinois or California or New York.’ And the challenge is we need to compare ourselves to Florida’s potential, right? Florida versus Florida.”
Though the Chicago billboards will stay energetic alongside I-55 for only one week, Wilson stated the Free Enterprise Florida marketing campaign will proceed, with extra states doubtlessly focused.
“Our goal in all of this is to give a wake-up call to the residents of these states,” Wilson stated. “We want America to win. And if you want to look at the future of what America can look like, you look no further than what Florida has done.”
