SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – A humbled Gov. Bruce Rauner is promising a different kind of governor in a second term.
The Republican campaigned Thursday in Chicago with an address that was part apologia and part stump speech.
He says, “I’m a better governor now than when I took office because of what I’ve learned.”
He faces J.B. Pritzker in a difficult re-election campaign.
The speech was a rare acknowledgement by Rauner of his weaknesses in taking office in 2015.
Rauner says he was mistaken to demand an all-or-nothing conservative agenda in exchange for a state budget.
What followed was a two-year standoff with Democrats that cost billions of dollars in debt and devastated social services and other programs.
Pritzker calls it a “desperate speech” by a failed governor who spent years refusing to compromise.
