Juliana Stratton Is the Only Serious Senate Candidate for Illinois
By: Sam Massey
There is something deeply embarrassing about watching the old Democratic guard rediscover “moderation” every time they lose power. Instead of interrogating why working-class voters feel alienated from a party that too often governs like a polite manager of decline, they pivot to the right to appeal to imaginary voters. We see it in national figures like Hillary Clinton flirting with border rhetoric that sounds indistinguishable from Republicans, arguing just this week that migration “went too far” and needs “secure borders” as if that framing has not already ceded the ground. It is panic politics, and I do not know who it appeals to. In Illinois, voters are living through the consequences of that drift.
Even Sen. Dick Durbin, whose career once symbolized what can only be described as steady liberalism, has ended on a note that feels like legacy erosion. After announcing his retirement, he broke with Senate leadership to support a shutdown deal that progressives like Bernie Sanders rightfully called “a very, very bad vote.” Durbin defended it as harm reduction, funding SNAP and reversing mass firings, but harm reduction is not a governing philosophy. It is a retreat posture that is incredibly easy if you do not have to live with the ramifications of it.
When you are the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and you are casting votes that split the caucus in a moment of crisis, that matters. Some might say it signals a party still terrified of confrontation, but it signals something worse to me. It is that the leadership of the party does not have a message to unify against in the first place. They are still convinced that appearing reasonable to Republicans or the affluent class is more important than building coalitions around workers, because that is not where the money is.
Now these voters are told to choose his successor. The money tells you almost everything. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi has amassed more than $28 million in total contributions, including $1.4 million from the Israel lobby, with more than $250,000 directly from pro-Israel PACs. Let’s be clear, that is not someone you are expecting to be neutral on funding for Israel. At a time when the United States is sending tax dollars and arming what experts in consensus consider genocide in Gaza, taking that money is definitely a statement. You do not get to call for peace while cashing checks from the architects of war.
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And when it comes to healthcare, Raja has repeatedly said he does not support Medicare for All, preferring to strengthen the current ACA. Quick question, who is inspired by incremental tweaks to a privatized insurance regime? Being a staunch defender of Obamacare might have been bold in 2010. In 2026, it is politically uninspired.
By contrast, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton has raised roughly $8.2 million, with her top contributors being labor unions and trade associations. She has pledged not to take corporate PAC money. From information available through OpenSecrets, it does not seem she has taken AIPAC or pro-Israel PAC money. That distinction matters at a time like this. In a Senate debate hosted by the Chicago Sun-Times, Stratton was the only major candidate willing to say plainly that ICE should be abolished. Not “reform Trump’s ICE” or “add an inspector general.” Abolish it. “This agency cannot be reformed,” she said. She is right. Anything less is an attempt to launder a deportation machine that functions like a domestic gestapo. You do not reform a structure built on terror. There is little spine in running on a message that stops short of that.
And yes, she has gone so much further on healthcare than Krishnamoorthi. In a January 5 post, Stratton called for Medicare for All, a $25 federal minimum wage, and getting corporate special interests out of politics. That is a recognition that the floor has fallen out from under working class America, and she is telling you directly what she is going to do about it.
As someone from the Region who has worked on campaigns for candidates across the country, I have never heard good things about Raja or his team from organizers in the trenches. That is anecdotal, sure, but politics is not only votes and dollars. It is trust and credibility too. It is whether people believe you are actually fighting for them or simply positioning for the next rung. I have genuinely never experienced something like it before. Never have I heard bad things about a candidate who was not our direct opponent in two different campaigns with two different personnel.
This primary is not a personality contest. It is a referendum on whether Illinois Democrats want to double down on consultant tested caution or actually break with a failing status quo. Abolish ICE. End funding to genocide in Gaza. Pass Medicare for All. Reject corporate PAC money. If that sounds radical, it is only because the political center has drifted so far toward satisfying those with capital that basic human dignity now reads as extremism. Juliana Stratton is not perfect. No candidate is. But she is the only one in this race who seems to understand that tinkering around the edges of a broken system is not enough. If Illinois wants to lead instead of managing decline, the choice is clear.
This article was written by Sam Massey.