Lt. Gov Juliana Stratton of Illinois celebrated her victory in the Democratic primary for Senate on Tuesday by taking aim at President Trump and making clear that she has no intention of backing away from that message as she enters a general election that she is heavily favored to win.
Ms. Stratton, whose campaign drew attention with a viral campaign ad last month featuring voters lobbing profanity at Mr. Trump, said that kind of aggressive messaging was resonating.
“It’s the energy that Democrats should be embracing — people are fed up, and they want fighters,” she said. “We have to meet this moment, and people don’t want the go-along-to-get-along mentality.”
Ms Stratton also made clear that she will continue to tie herself closely to Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a potential 2028 presidential contender who funneled millions into her campaign and who could benefit from the support of a prominent Black woman in Washington.
Speaking with reporters at a news conference in Chicago on Wednesday morning, Ms. Stratton said Mr. Pritzker was “one of my biggest cheerleaders,” adding: “I think he’d make a great president.”
“If you saw him last night, I had a lot of joy, but he was just as joyful,” she said. A super PAC aligned with Mr. Pritzker spent at least $5 million, and likely much more, to help lift Ms. Stratton past her chief rival, Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi.
Running in a deep-blue state, Ms. Stratton also pointed out the historic nature of her achievement: She is poised to become only the sixth Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate.
The role of deep-pocketed super PACs aligned with pro-Israel groups like AIPAC, as well as the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industries, was a key aspect of several competitive Illinois races. Ms. Stratton tied Mr. Trump to the flood of pro-crypto spending against her.
“This wasn’t about crypto policy,” she said. “They know that I’m somebody that’s going to stand up for working families, stand up to Donald Trump, and many of them are his allies.”
But Ms. Stratton sidestepped a question about what role AIPAC, the powerful lobbying group that poured millions of dollars into backing pro-Israel House candidates, should play in Democratic politics. Ms. Stratton said only that “I’m not taking, for example, any corporate PAC money in this race, and I think that was an important message for this campaign.”
She also reiterated her position that Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, should step aside from his leadership role in next year’s Congress. Ms. Stratton said she had not heard from Mr. Schumer since her victory, although he did release a statement congratulating her. “We’ve missed each other and haven’t had a chance to connect,” she said.
As for the prospect of joining the two other Black women in the Senate — Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland and Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware — Ms. Stratton said “the idea of three means there’s that much more of an opportunity to make sure that when policy is being made, when legislation is being passed, that the voices of our community are right there at the table.”
Kellen Browning is a Times political reporter based in San Francisco.
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