Last weekend, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton’s campaign announced some rather unusual news: She had been endorsed in the Democratic primary race for Senate in Illinois by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died a month ago.
But as it turns out, the posthumous endorsement may have been a case of muddled communication. On Monday, Mr. Jackson’s son Yusef D. Jackson released a statement saying that while his father had reviewed candidates for endorsements, he had not made final choices before his death.
“We decided not to publicly release his intended selections given the process had not been finalized,” the younger Mr. Jackson said in the statement. “Unfortunately, this weekend, a draft sample ballot that was in development was released without authorization.”
In a subsequent statement, Yusef Jackson sought to explain the situation.
“We did not withdraw or retract our endorsement of any one candidate,” he said. “We made clear that the document shared this weekend was not final and out of respect for my late father and in our family’s time of bereavement, we would not be confirming nor issuing political endorsements in this cycle.”
The walkback of his father’s endorsement came after organizers from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the political advocacy group Jesse Jackson founded on Chicago’s South Side, distributed a sample ballot listing his “personal endorsements” at a Women’s History Month event Saturday morning. Ms. Stratton was among those listed.
Ms. Stratton had attended the gathering and was told by aides who had worked for Jesse Jackson that he had meant to endorse her, according to Ms. Stratton’s spokeswoman, Alison Janowski.
“Organizers shared the sample election ballot that was already being distributed and encouraged her to share the news,” Ms. Janowski said.
Kelsey Nulph, a spokeswoman for Yusef Jackson, said the endorsement choices and distribution of the sample ballot had not been approved by the Jackson family. The sample ballot listed dozens of Jesse Jackson’s “personal endorsements” in Democratic primaries for Congress, state legislature, local judges and county commissioners, according to a copy viewed by The New York Times.
On Saturday afternoon, Ms. Stratton did an interview with MS Now from the Rainbow PUSH headquarters highlighting what she said was her Jesse Jackson endorsement.
“He endorsed me for the United States Senate,” she said.
But after Yusef Jackson’s initial clarification, Ms. Stratton’s rivals mocked her over the episode.
“They need to answer some serious questions about this,” Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, Ms. Stratton’s chief rival in the Senate race, told reporters in Chicago. “My staff is looking through the history books for my next endorsement.”
It is not unprecedented for politicians to claim support from a dead person. Plenty of Republicans campaigning in primaries this year have pointed to support from Charlie Kirk, the conservative commentator who was assassinated in September.
And in something of the reverse, in August 2020, a social media account affiliated with Herman Cain, the Republican pizza magnate who had died weeks earlier, attacked Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Kamala Harris.
Reid J. Epstein is a Times reporter covering campaigns and elections from Washington.
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