Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn in the last few weeks has dropped more than $100 million on his bid to win re-election. And that doesn’t include political contributions.

The Democratic governor, who jacked up income and corporate taxes four years ago and has presided over multiple downgrades in the state’s credit rating, is now charging campaign expenses on taxpayers’ credit card—itemized as “state investments.” Such investments are funded by the state’s economic development program (i.e., venture-capital fund) and the governor’s $31 billion construction jobs program, which he hails as among the largest in the country.

This month Mr. Quinn invested $2.5 million in an early childhood center in Brighton Park; $25.2 million in Southwestern Illinois College; $2.2 million in state-of-the-art science labs at Saint Xavier University; $3 million in the Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation; $3 million in a new Decatur community center; $5.8 million in private colleges and universities in central Illinois; and $1.25 million for Chicago’s Lincoln Park Cultural Center. The entire state is a playground for the governor.

Mr. Quinn is also spending state money on private outfits. For instance, he’s invested $1 million in the Chicago Innovation Exchange; $2.9 million in Focal Point architectural lighting; $2.5 million in Coyote Logistics; $52 million in Cronus Chemicals. He also delivered a $26.6 million U.S. Treasury Department “award” to small businesses. On Thursday he unveiled a new Digital Manufacturing Hub in Chicago, financed in part by a $16 million state investment.

Republican Bruce Rauner has raised twice as much cash as the governor, but it’s hard to compete with Mr. Quinn’s robust public financing. Taxpayers can expect to be billed for the governor’s campaign expenses after the election when the lame-duck legislature heeds his call to extend the tax hikes he claimed would be temporary when he sold them.