Good morning, Chicago. ✶
🔎 Below: Gov. JB Pritzker didn’t start the yearslong grudge match with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, but he notched a major win against him by financially backing the Democratic candidates who turned the Lone Star State blue.
🗞️ Plus: Illinois makes history in the Senate, an ode to Bob Newhart and more news you need to know below.
📝 Keeping score: The Bulls lost to the Knicks, 135-105; the Blackhawks fell to the Panthers, 5-3.
🌧️ Today’s weather: Cloudy, with evening rain likely and a high near 55.
⏱️: An 8-minute read
TODAY’S TOP STORY 🔎
Pritzker takes personal pride in Texas Gov. Abbott’s defeat
Reporting by Tina Sfondeles
Gov’s grudge: Amid his reelection campaign, Gov. JB Pritzker also had Texas on his mind, having contributed $1.2 million to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa and $100,000 to U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico. Both would go on to win their races. He also contributed to several other Texas races. All of the Texas candidates Pritzker supported won Tuesday. To Pritzker, the fight to defeat Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was personal.
Key context: In 2021, Abbott signed into law an abortion ban at six weeks of pregnancy. Pritzker then sent letters to corporate executives with ties to Texas, advising them to reconsider doing business in a state that “strips its residents of their dignity.” The following year, Abbott sent thousands of migrants to Chicago. The tension boiled over in January 2024, when Pritzker pleaded with Abbott to halt migrant dropoffs in the dead of winter.
Boiling point: Last year, Abbott took center stage in the President Donald Trump-approved battle to net Texas five additional GOP seats. Pritzker responded by taking in 40 Texas House Democrats in August 2025 to deny Republicans a quorum needed to approve the new maps. Abbott then sent Texas National Guard troops to Illinois as part of Trump’s Operation Midway Blitz, although the troops were never deployed after a protracted court battle.
Policy playbook: Declaring Democrats’ electoral victories “a clear mandate” to reverse Trump’s agenda, Pritzker on Wednesday laid out 200 policy proposals for his party’s new majorities to pass in Congress. The agenda outlines numerous proposals to repeal broad spending cuts authorized by Trump that decimated Medicaid coverage, SNAP payments and a litany of other social services.
HISTORIC ELECTION ✶
Stratton’s win marks historic first for women of color in national politics
Reporting by Violet Miller
Herstory made: When U.S. Sen.-elect Juliana Stratton is officially sworn in next January, Illinois will become the first state with two women of color serving in the Senate simultaneously. Stratton will also become the sixth Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate and the second from Illinois.
Key context: During her victory speech Tuesday night, Stratton said outgoing Sen. Dick Durbin had reminded her that the seat she was vying for is the same one Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas had once run against each other for, notably splitting on slavery. She noted her great-great-grandfather, William Stephens, was freed when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
More on elections:
- School board update: Here’s where things stand now that most races for Chicago’s first-ever fully elected school board have been called.
- Gunshot detection referendum: More than 70% of Chicagoans expressed in an advisory referendum that they want to bring back gunshot detection technology, but the vote is unlikely to pressure Mayor Brandon Johnson into reviving it.
- GA impact: Democrats’ nationwide blue tsunami swept through Springfield on Tuesday night, too, running up the state party’s supermajorities toward historic highs in the Illinois General Assembly. House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch’s political operation flipped at least four districts — three additional House seats were still in play for Democrats on Wednesday.
- In Indiana: The blue wave also hit in parts of normally red Indiana. Democrats picked up an additional Congressional seat and won the party’s first statewide election in 14 years, when Beau Bayh took the race for Indiana secretary of state.
- Voter reactions: After the Election Day results rolled in, we heard from Chicago voters about their hopes for accountability and better government.
- Polling issues: Election officials blamed a coding error for causing ballot shortages at several Chicago precincts on Tuesday, forcing people to wait in long lines for touchscreen voting machines.
WATCH: WHO IS JESSICA BIGGS? ▶️
Sun-Times reporter Emmanuel Camarillo on the Chicago School Board president-elect’s win.
MORE NEWS YOU NEED 🗞️
- Status sought: The home of architect John Vinci, 89, is being considered for preliminary landmark status. The designation would make Vinci the second Chicago architect to have his house landmarked while still residing there.
- Attempted stabbing: A University of Illinois Chicago student was arrested after an attempted stabbing in the school’s student center Wednesday, university officials said.
- Parking attendants strike: Members of Teamsters Local 727 formed picket lines Tuesday at O’Hare Airport, McCormick Place and the Hyatt Regency as their union accused parking operators of bargaining in bad faith.
- Remembering Rabbi Capers Funnye: The chief rabbi of one of the largest Black synagogues in America, Rabbi Funnye broke racial barriers. He was also former First Lady Michelle Obama’s cousin. Funnye died Monday at age 74.
- Genesis Convention Center demolition: Crews are ripping down the 45-year-old convention center in the opening move of a downtown redevelopment effort.
- Art mystery: Painter Mary Cassatt created a masterpiece for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Then, it disappeared. At the Art Institute of Chicago this fall, an exhibit devoted to Cassatt dives deep into the mystery.
CHICAGO MINI CROSSWORD 🌭
Today’s clue: ___ Harvest Film Festival (annual Siskel Center event)
FROM THE PRESS BOX 🏈🏒🏀
- HOF finalist: Late Bears matriarch Virginia McCaskey is one of five contributors who have advanced for a Pro Football Hall of Fame vote.
- Williams’ way: Bears QB Caleb Williams is once again the talk of the NFL, but he’s controlling the conversation now.
- Blashill presses on: Despite criticism, Blackhawks coach Jeff Blashill vows to “stay steady with what we believe in.”
- Much-needed reps: Bulls rookie Dailyn Swain is headed to G League to get some playing time.
- High school boys basketball: Bolingbrook’s Brady Pettigrew is emerging as a national star and weighing college options.
BRIGHT ONE 🔆
How Bob Newhart became a beloved comedian
Reporting by Stefano Esposito
Throughout the years, in the deepening lines, hollowing cheeks and weary eyes of Bob Newhart’s face, audiences were reminded of what had always made his comedy so irresistible, so universal: a look that said, “I can’t believe I’m having to deal with this crap.”
That silent comedy is a big part of why the Oak Park-born, Cubs-loving, failed accountant endured as one of America’s most-loved comedians for more than six decades.
Newhart’s life in comedy is now meticulously chronicled in “Bob Newhart: The Life and Laughter of an American Treasure,” released last month.
“That was the genius of Bob Newhart, who managed to stay ‘in vogue’ throughout his long career … because he appealed to so many different segments of society without ever altering the ingredients that were mixed into his recipe for success — that magical mélange of humility, gentle humor, and grace that endeared him to his admirers,” writes the book’s author, Michael Seth Starr.
YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️
After Tuesday’s nationwide wins, what is your message to Democrats as they prepare to take control of the House and Senate?
Reply to this question via email (please include your first and last name). We may run your answer in a future newsletter or story.
Thanks for reading the Sun-Times Morning Edition! Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.
Written and curated by: Matt Moore
Editor: Michael Lansu
Copy edited by: Satchel Price
Hat tip: The Sun-Times’ Eric White for today’s subject line, which you can find a version of on the front page of today’s print edition.