Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won Illinois’ Democratic Senate primary Tuesday and is all but certain to make history as one of three Black women to serve in the upper chamber at the same time. 

Stratton edged out the race’s front-runner, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, with Rep. Robin Kelly in third place, Decision Desk HQ projects. Now, she will face former Illinois Republican Party chair Don Tracy in November. 

During her victory speech, Stratton thanked her fellow candidates and said she was focused on the upcoming general election. 

“Tonight’s message is clear: We’re ready to take our democracy back into our own hands,” Stratton said Tuesday night. “I’ve seen the very best of Illinoisans who have taken to the streets, stood up for their neighbors and refused to back down. … Courage inspired me to run, courage powered this campaign and courage will bring this fight straight to Donald Trump’s door.”

The lieutenant governor pointed to her initiatives to improve maternal health outcomes and foster girls’ political participation as examples of how representation led to direct change for women in the state. But she also named her father, who grew up in rural Pennsylvania and was barred from visiting the U.S. Capitol as a teenager, as a motivation for running for Senate.

“He wasn’t allowed to because of the color of his skin,” she told The 19th last week. “This is not my great-grandfather, it’s not my grandfather, this is my father. Now his daughter is running to work in and serve the people in that very same building that he was not allowed to visit as a high school student. It’s the only chance in the country to elect a Black woman. I’m really proud I have the best path to do so.”

Just five Black women have served in the Senate, including former Vice President Kamala Harris of California. When Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland won their 2024 campaigns, they became the first Black women to serve simultaneously.

Illinois was the first state to elect a Black woman to the Senate, sending Carol Moseley-Braun in 1992. Both Moseley-Braun and Sen. Tammy Duckworth, first elected in 2016 and the only other woman ever elected to the Senate from Illinois, endorsed Stratton.

The Illinois Senate race was the only one of its kind this cycle in which two Black women elected officials ran against each other. Stratton named Moseley-Braun and former President Barack Obama, who served one Senate term before running for president, as examples of the state’s wide bench of winning Black candidates.

“I’m just going to keep doing whatever I can,” she said. “It’s not enough just to get to the table — you have to scoot over and make room for others to sit at the table as well, and sometimes we have to build our own tables.”

Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker tapped into his vast personal funds to spend millions on his No. 2’s campaign, an expected move that nonetheless became a point of criticism late in the race — which already saw large amounts of PAC spending in the final weeks. 

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) also got involved in March, blasting Pritzker — a potential 2028 presidential hopeful — for boosting Stratton financially. Members of the caucus across both chambers had split in backing either Kelly or Stratton.

“Governor Pritzker’s effort to tip the scales in Illinois’ U.S. Senate race is beyond frustrating for the Congressional Black Caucus,” chair Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat, said in a statement. “A sitting governor shouldn’t be heavy-handing the race. Quite frankly, his behavior in this race won’t soon be forgotten by any of us.”

Stratton told The 19th she was disappointed to see the comments, adding that she strongly believes in the CBC’s mission to grow the Black caucus — a group she hopes to join next January. 

Clarke’s statement was one of several shifts to the race to occur in its final weeks. Following the death of civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Stratton announced last weekend that he had endorsed her campaign. Her son later clarified that while his father had considered candidates to back, he had not solidified his choice before his death and a “draft sample ballot” had erroneously been released.

Both Stratton and Kelly also were criticized for recycling old endorsements from Obama, who still holds a lot of political sway in his home state — despite not having made a formal show of support in this Senate race.