By Adam Studzinski

SPRINGFIELD – Billionaire venture capitalist J.B. Pritzker announced this week he’s launching an exploratory committee for Illinois governor.

That could result in two billionaires – Gov. Bruce Rauner and Prizker – facing off in the next gubernatorial election. University of Illinois-Springfield professor emeritus Kent Redfield, who studies campaign spending, said this could result in even more campaign spending than what was seen in 2014.

“The potential is for an incredibly expensive race if he does in fact, Pritzker does in fact, get the Democratic nomination,” said Redfield. “But we’re a long way from there. He’s never run for office.”

Redfield added you never know how some of these exploratory committees will turn out.

“People were assuming that Bruce Rauner would, kind of, go the way of a number of other pretty rich Republicans that have tried to run for office in the last 10 years and he turned out to be a pretty quick study in terms of running for office,” he said.

Redfield said 2014’s race between Rauner and then-Gov. Pat Quinn resulted in more than $100 million in campaign spending, if you include independent expenditures.

Adam Studzinski can be reached at [email protected].