MOORE’S SUMMARY: Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton isn’t backing off her progressive policy proposals — such as a $25 hourly federal minimum wage and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement — even as she pivots to a general election matchup with former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy for retiring Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat.
STRATTON’S THESIS: “I believe that we should have bold, courageous policy platforms and ideas that can really change not just a person’s life, but change the trajectory of their family and their community,” Stratton told me earlier this week.
The lieutenant governor and I met at Whimsy Tea Company in downtown Springfield — a fitting location for two avid tea drinkers who both happen to be friends with the shop’s proprietor, Gordon Davis. She was in town to present her office’s annual budget request before House and Senate appropriators, the eighth and final time she will do so.
In a nearly 30-minute interview, Stratton made the case that Democrats should not “lower their expectations about what’s possible,” especially if the party wins back the Senate.
“I think we should stop thinking about bare minimum — bare minimum wage, bare minimum health care,” Stratton said. “We should start thinking about how to help people thrive, and that’s what I’m going to fight for.”
That’s the kind of talk that helped fuel Stratton’s come-from-behind victory over Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Rep. Robin Kelly in the March 17 primary. She secured 40% of the vote to Krishnamoorthi’s 33% and Kelly’s 18%.
She received an assist from Gov. JB Pritzker, who bankrolled Illinois Future PAC’s pro-Stratton ad campaign to the tune of $10 million, according to a Federal Elections Commission filing earlier this week. Unlike the strict fundraising restrictions placed on federal candidate committees, super PACs can raise and spend unlimited sums.
Stratton’s campaign struggled to fundraise, but made the most of their limited resources.
F–K TRUMP: This included the release of a low-budget digital ad featuring people, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth, saying “F–k Trump, vote Juliana.” It went viral, which Stratton attributes to just saying the thing people were already thinking.
“I mean, it was such a great example of what I was hearing on the campaign trail,” Stratton said. “And when I said earlier that people are fed up with what’s happening, sometimes people gave me that message. There were others that didn’t quite get to the exact words, but you could tell that that’s what they were feeling inside — like maybe they couldn’t pinpoint it, but what they knew was that every morning they were waking up to some headline.”
She said the ad “really captured what so many people were feeling about their anger, their frustration, and even their fears that we are hearing all across this country.”
“And I think when we had the (No Kings) marches and the rallies, what I looked at those as being is sort of the general public or voters telling us, ‘Hey, elected officials, this is what I’m looking for. This is the energy right here. You see us out on these streets, standing up, protesting, fighting back? That’s what we want from you,’” Stratton said.
NO WALK BACK: Tracy, Stratton’s GOP opponent, is attempting to portray her as “too extreme for Illinois,” highlighting her positions on the minimum wage, immigration and other issues while trying to associate her with progressive groups like the Chicago Teachers Union and politicians like Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
But Stratton said not to expect her to walk back on her primary rhetoric and proposals, saying she wants to bring what she’s deemed the “Illinois Blueprint” to Washington, D.C. She pointed to, for example, Illinois raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour — more than double the national rate. She wants to raise it to $25 an hour. Her primary opponents pitched $17 an hour.
“It would be a raise, but I’m fighting for 25 because if we were going to do 17, it should be today,” Stratton said. “It should be right now.”
Stratton, a trained mediator who founded a firm focused on alternative conflict resolution, said she would bring those skills to the Senate, both to work through issues and find “win-win” solutions on topics like the minimum wage.
And, as she did working on criminal justice issues in Illinois, she would seek to reframe topics like immigration enforcement, calling for ICE’s abolition and the creation of a new agency outside the Department of Homeland Security that takes a holistic approach to the issue, including comprehensive immigration reform.
“ICE has been put under DHS — so it’s put under an agency that’s really focused on counter terrorism. So right from the very beginning, you’re thinking of immigration through a punitive lens,” Stratton said. “Let’s think about how we invest in immigration judges, provide community resources, and invest in social services (and) case management. What can we do to help people to move through a system and be on a real path? That’s not what this is, and it’s certainly not what we’re seeing taking place in our communities.”
TRUMP FACTOR: Tracy easily won a six-way GOP primary last month and had more than $1.5 million cash on hand at the end of March – more than double the nearly $700,000 Stratton reported. She said she’s taking the general election seriously, but is betting that her adversarial stance on President Donald Trump – deeply unpopular in Illinois – will resonate with voters in November as it did in March.
“This is a real campaign, and it’s going to be important for me to continue hearing from voters, but to also let them know that I’m the only candidate in this race that’s really going to stand up to Donald Trump and make sure that I fight for them,” Stratton said.
QUICK HITS: Stratton affirmed that, if elected, she’d support abolishing the filibuster in a Democratic-controlled Senate. She said she’s spoken with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer but says she still won’t support him remaining Democratic leader.
And a question I try to get every Illinois politician on the record about: Cubs or White Sox? Stratton, who lives in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood: “South Sider, White Sox.”
We will post the full video of our interview tomorrow on our YouTube channel. When you visit, give it a like and subscribe to help us out.
