Politics
Stratton wins Illinois primary, giving Dems another Black female senator
CHICAGO — Democrats are now all but certain to elect another Black woman to the U.S. Senate after Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton won Tuesday’s bitter and expensive primary in Illinois.
Stratton overcame a crowded Democratic contest for the state’s open Senate seat, defeating front-runner Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi with the help of millions of dollars of outside spending — much of it from her old running mate, Gov. JB Pritzker.
She is widely seen as the favorite to succeed Sen. Dick Durbin in the blue state and would become the sixth Black woman to have ever served in the upper chamber.
The contest was defined by heavy outside spending and intraparty fissures over race. It became contentions during the final weeks, with Krishnamoorthi and Stratton trading sharp attacks on the debate stage and blasting each other in TV ads over corporate money and immigration policy.
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus — who backed a different contender, Rep. Robin Kelly, in the primary — also warned that Pritzker’s interference could split the Black vote and cost Democrats a chance at electing a Black woman to the Senate this year.
Stratton’s late surge was powered by a combination of endorsements, outside spending and targeted messaging. She benefited from the support of Pritzker and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.). Illinois Future PAC, which received major cash infusions from Pritzker and other allies, spent at least $11.8 million boosting Stratton’s campaign and attacking Krishnamoorthi.
Stratton will face Don Tracy, a former Illinois Republican Party chair, in November. If elected, she would become the second Black woman to be nominated to the Senate from Illinois, following Carol Moseley Braun — who endorsed Stratton in the contest.
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Helping your child navigate something as big and complex as emotional wellbeing can feel pretty daunting, if you ask me.
But there are ways to support your child to understand and manage their feelings that can be “fun and even enlightening”, according to Hayley Standen, a social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) advisor, who’s teamed up with Learning Resources to create a Kids’ Wellbeing Toolkit.
Emotional literacy is the ability to recognise, name and talk about feelings – children learn this over time, and it’s pretty important for everything from self-awareness and empathy to maintaining healthy relationships.
You can start building emotional literacy by helping children learn the words for different feelings. “Naming emotions makes them easier to understand and manage,” explains Standen.
Some practical ways to build emotional literacy include:
On that latter point, here are 10 toys and books which can help kickstart some all-important conversations about how your child feels.
Angela Rayner has launched an outspoken attack on home secretary Shabana Mahmood’s controversial immigration crackdown.
The former deputy prime minister said the government was “moving the goalposts” by threatening to deport migrants who have been granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
In her fiercest criticism of the government she used to be a part of, Rayner also warned that Labour is “running out of time” to deliver the change the public voted for at the last general election.
She made her comments at an event organised by the soft-left campaign group Mainstream on Tuesday night.
On Mahmood’s immigration shake-up, Rayner said: “Many people came here to Britain on the understanding that if they worked in the sectors where we needed them, obeyed the law and paid their taxes, they could stay.
“If we suddenly change that, it pulls the rug from under those who have planned their lives and commitments and are contributing to our economy and to our society.
“That would be not just bad policy but a breach of trust. The people already in the system – who made a huge investment – now fear for their future, they do not have stability and do not know what will happen.
“We cannot talk about earning a settlement if we keep moving the goalposts, because moving the goalposts undermines our sense of fair play. It’s un-British.”
Rayner was forced to resign from the cabinet last year after it emerged she had paid around £40,000 less than she should have done in stamp duty when buying a second property earlier this year.
She is still under investigation by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, amid speculation that she is plotting a leadership bid should Keir Starmer be forced to quit.
In comments which will be interpreted as an attack on the PM, Rayner said: “As a party, and as a movement, we cannot hide, we cannot just go through the motions in the face of decline.
“There’s no safe ground and we’re running out of time.
“The change that people wanted so desperately needs to be seen, it needs to be felt, and we have to show that it is a Labour government that will deliver it.”
Alex Burghart MP is Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary, and Conservative MP for Brentwood and Ongar.
The Mandelson-Epstein scandal continues to spread. Last night I had a drink with a long-experienced political hand who told me it bore all the hallmarks of Watergate.
Watergate brought down the White House Chief of Staff, its Chief Domestic Adviser, its Counsel, two Attorneys General, a Deputy Attorney General, and a President. So far Mandelson-Epstein has taken the jobs of the UK’s Ambassador to Washington, Downing Street’s Chief of Staff, and it’s Communications Director. It is unlikely to stop there.
The Conservatives have forced the issue from the start, pushing the Prime Minister repeatedly on what he knew and when and forcing the first major defeat of the Labour government last month with our Humble Address. This requires the Government to hand over all of its documentation about Mandelson’s appointment.
Since Kemi Badenoch forced it out of him last month at Prime Minister’s Questions, we have known that the Prime Minister was well aware that Mandelson had maintained his friendship with Epstein even after the latter’s conviction for child sex offences. Following the first Humble Address return we have it in black and white along with, in bold, a warning that there was “general reputational risk”. Who’d have thought it about a man already twice fired?
But the documents have huge lacunae. Either the government was not maintaining a record of what it was doing, or it has not handed over the documents. Last week I wrote to Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, pointing out 56 instances where there should have been a record to publish. The absurdity of it all is highlighted by the fact that there is not one read out, response or reply from the Prime Minister, from his Chief of Staff or Peter Mandelson in the whole release. No notes, no emails, no forms. Nothing. It is as though their fingerprints have been forensically removed from the process.
The seriousness of this is simple. If the Government did not follow due process, the Prime Minister has lied to the House. If the Government has not handed over the documents, it has not complied with the Humble Address and is in contempt of Parliament.
On 11 November 2024, the Cabinet Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted to make a political appointment to Washington, the civil service would “develop a plan for … the necessary security clearances and do due diligence on any potential Conflicts of Interest”. Where, then, are the documents that show these security clearances and declarations were down? They are not in the papers the government has released.
I dragged the Government to the House with an Urgent Question to put this to them. There were no satisfactory answers. The Minister refused to confirm either that the security clearance had been done or that Mandelson had submitted a declaration of interests.
We know that at least one document has not been published at the request of the Metropolitan Police. This contains the questions that Morgan McSweeney asked Peter Mandelson. (The absurdity here is, of course, that Mandelson’s vetting was being done by a close friend who wanted him to have the job.) But what is key is that the Government has admitted the existence of the document. If there are other key documents being held back by the police, there is nothing to stop the Government telling us what they are.
So there is no reason for the Government to hide the fact that a security vetting form exists. There is no reason for the Government to hide the fact that Mandelson submitted a declaration of interests. And that means that it is likely those documents do not exist. And if they do not, due process was not followed. And if due process was not followed, then when the Prime Minister assured the House in September that “full due process was followed”, he lied.
There comes a point in any scandal where the cover up becomes the crime. The Government is not being honest. The Prime Minister is not being honest. And that means that the Mandelson-Epstein scandal, will continue to spread.
Katie Lam is a shadow Home Office minister and MP for Weald of Kent.
If you put aside money for your retirement, and entrust it to a company to manage, who do you expect to make the decisions about how to invest that money – your money?
Most people would very reasonably expect that their cash would be invested by whatever company they had asked to to invest it, in line with whatever instructions they had given about their preferences and risk tolerance.
Shockingly – but perhaps not surprisingly – this Government doesn’t agree. Their Pension Schemes Bill would give the power to direct pension investments to Government ministers, who could, for example, force private pension providers to invest in British assets, even if those assets will provide lower returns than assets abroad. You can work hard for a lifetime, save a little at the end of each month – and at the stroke of a pen, ministers will be able to decide where that money goes, even if it means that you’ll end up with less money in your retirement.
As shadow welfare secretary Helen Whately has already said, this is an absurd power grab. It is a breathtaking violation of basic property rights: your money is yours to do what you want with, not just a vehicle for the state to achieve its ideological aims.
The Government is right to identify that British assets are not always attractive investments. But the solution is not to just force people to invest in them anyway. It is to make the British economy a better place to operate and grow, to let people take risks, and allow businesses to do what they’re good at, so that people choose of their own free will to invest here.
We see this approach from the Government all the time: overregulate something to destruction, and then either force people to support it, or use taxpayers’ money to subsidise it. It’s exactly the approach they’ve taken to employing young people: they’ve made it prohibitively expensive, so now they’re offering businesses thousands of pounds of your money in subsidies.
And the general approach of Government knows best is one we see writ large all over the economy. Too many people, whether politicians or bureaucrats, have decided that secondary social aims are a good reason to interfere with how businesses operate. We are now harvesting the bitter fruits of this approach – which is a large part of why I haven’t experienced proper economic growth in my adult lifetime.
The market economy is exceptionally good at providing, or inventing, goods and services that people want, at a cost that they’re willing to pay. If individual businesses are allowed to fulfil that function, and are good enough to succeed against their competitors, then they can create jobs, and invest in coming up with new goods and services, or improving their existing offering.
The net result is that we get to live in a country where people have more money, and more choice over how to spend it. This simple premise is what made Britain so successful for so long. Indeed, it has been the single most reliable blueprint for human flourishing and prosperity in history.
However, if politicians try to use the market economy as a tool to achieve other aims, it will be less effective at that original function. The net result is that people end up with fewer job opportunities, less money to spend, and less choice about how to spend it.
These directives are bad enough when they come from ministers – but far more corrosive when they’re set, or enforced, by unaccountable regulators and bureaucrats.
While regulators are sometimes directed by legislation, they have a tendency to take the maximalist position on implementation. After all, if somebody is employed to think about eliminating risk from the financial system, or achieving a particular demographic makeup in the boards of companies, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.
And if the public doesn’t like what those regulators have achieved, or how they’ve achieved it, then they have no mechanism by which to remove them.
Yet we find ourselves in a position where these unaccountable regulators have the power to set, and enforce, all sorts of rules about things that have nothing to do with profit-making or the stability of our financial system.
For example, publicly traded companies must have, or must “explain to the regulator” why they don’t have, an ethnic minority board member, and a minimum of 40 percent women on their board of directors.
It is absurd that our financial regulator cares more about whether you have enough women on your board than if you actually make any money. Unsurprisingly, businesses have simply decided not to list themselves in Britain – with CRH, a building materials firm valued at £50 billion, ditching London altogether this week.
The Shadow Chancellor was absolutely right to say at Party Conference last year that we must scrap these absurd rules. Whenever we’ve let people take risks, and allowed people to hire on the basis of merit and ability, this country has succeeded. Whenever countries have tried to interfere with the market economy in the name of secondary social outcomes, they’ve failed.
We must not let Britain become the latest in a long line of economic basket-cases which have endlessly, and fruitlessly, tried to legislate their way to prosperity. Instead, as ever, we must trust in the entrepreneurial spirit of the British people.
US allies in Europe and elsewhere are continuing to rebuff President Donald Trump’s demands they help reopen the Strait of Hormuz amid the US-Israeli war in Iran, despite Trump’s ultimatums, pleas and claims that, actually, “we no longer need” their help after all.
(Rounding out the mixed messaging, Trump also claimed on Monday that “numerous countries” were already “on the way” to help, but declined to say which ones.)
Turns out allies don’t like helping when all you do is insult them.
“They should be in here very happily helping us,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “They should be jumping to help us because we’ve helped them for years.”
Trump struck a different tone on Tuesday in a post on social media.
“Speaking as President of the United States of America, by far the Most Powerful Country Anywhere in the World, WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!”
Here’s what the rest of the world is saying:
UK
Keir Starmer has voiced support for a plan to reopen the critical shipping lane, but has notably stopped well short of committing British resources to doing so.
“Ultimately, we have to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ensure stability in the [oil] market. That is not a simple task,” Starmer told reporters on Monday.
“So we’re working with all of our allies, including our European partners, to bring together a viable collective plan that can restore freedom of navigation in the region as quickly as possible and ease the economic impact.”
European Union
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told Reuters that “nobody is ready to put their people in harm’s way in the Strait of Hormuz.”
“We have to find … diplomatic ways to keep this open so that we don’t have a … food crisis, fertilizers crisis, energy crisis in the world,” she said.
Kallas added that the 27-nation bloc would be open to looking at ways to replicate a deal that helped get grain out of Ukraine amid the war in the country, telling Reuters that the United Nations is already working on that.
Greece
Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece, a major force in global shipping, would not join any military operations near Iran.
“Greece is not going to participate in any operation around the theatre of current operations,” he told a Bloomberg event on Tuesday in Athens. “I doubt that there is much European appetite for such a mission right now.”
Germany
German defence minister Boris Pistorius echoed a similar sentiment.
“The Americans chose this path, together with the Israelis,” he said, according to Politico, noting Germany would prioritise defending NATO territory.
“We did not start this war,” he added.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said, “NATO has no place here at all,” arguing it is “a defensive alliance, not an interventionist one.”
Denmark
Denmark, which in 2024 helped safeguard traffic in the Red Sea amid strikes by Houthi militants in Yemen, has been far more reticent to commit to similar action off the coast of Iran.
In comments on Monday, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told journalists the country would like to see a coordinated European response.
“Even if we don’t like what’s going on, I think it’s wise to keep an open mind on whether Europe … in some way can contribute, but with a view towards de-escalation,” he said. “Denmark is a sea-faring nation and we have in every way an interest in ensuring free navigation.”
France
French president Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday the country will not take part in any immediate operation to reopen Hormuz, but might reconsider “once the situation is calmer.”
“We are not party to the conflict,” he said at a defence council meeting. “France did not choose this war. We are not taking part in it. We have a purely defensive position. Our objectives are clear: to protect our nationals, our diplomatic and military sites, and our interests in the region.”
Spain
Madrid’s defence and foreign affairs ministers on Monday flatly ruled out any action in Hormuz.
Foreign minister José Manuel Albares called the war a “spiral of violence” and an “escalation that does not have clear objectives” in an interview with La Razón, a Spanish newspaper.
Defence minister Margarita Robles meanwhile said that “Spain is not considering any mission in Hormuz. What we are considering is the demand that the war end.”
Australia
Catherine King, Australia’s transport minister, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday the country doesn’t plan to pitch in on Trump’s crisis, either.
“We won’t be sending a ship to the Strait of Hormuz,” she said. “We know how incredibly important that is, but that’s not something that we’ve been asked or that we’re contributing to.”
We’ve already decoded the meanings of choppelganger, chopped and why kids keep saying lowkenuinely.
Now it’s time to shine a spotlight on another favourite term embraced by Generations Alpha and Z: mid.
The critical descriptor has been knocking around for a few years now, but teens and young adults are increasingly using it in everyday life.
While many of us know “mid” as a term to describe something that’s among, or in the middle of, something; for the younger generations (wow, I feel old writing that) it means something else entirely.
What does mid mean?
When Gen Alpha uses it, “mid” means mediocre or of disappointing quality. If you’re described as “mid” by a teenager then they’re basically saying you are… average.
Possibly even below average.
According to Merriam-Webster, “mid” serves to express that something falls short of expectations, or isn’t impressive.
It’s not bad, per se, but it’s not exactly good either. (In fact, the way it’s used nowadays is probably veering more towards bad than good.)
The dictionary notes that this slang term is thought to have come from a shortening of the term mid-grade, “a designation in cannabis culture of medium quality”.
Over time it’s evolved to be used as a descriptor of everything from people and food, to film and TV.
Some examples of how it could be used include:
- “That burger was mid.”
- “Did you enjoy the party? I thought it was mid.”
- “I liked their last album. Their new album’s mid.”
Want to learn more? There’s also been chat, clock it and glazing, as well as aura farming and crash out. Honestly, the kids have been busy.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee saw mixed results in the first major test of its political muscle in the midterms, drawing fresh recriminations from its foes — and some allies — for its interference in four competitive Illinois House primaries.
Two of AIPAC’s supported candidates won their races Tuesday night, with Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller denying former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. a comeback in the 2nd District and former Rep. Melissa Bean defeating a slew of progressive challengers in the 8th District.
But the group faced criticism from within the pro-Israel Democratic community and harsh words from its opponents after it failed to secure its preferred outcome in the two races where it spent the most money.
In the 9th District, the group spent $7 million, some of it aimed at attacking Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, whose mother is Israeli, making an enemy of a likely soon-to-be U.S. representative who has been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza but who had previously been willing to engage with the group. Biss won the crowded primary Tuesday night, after AIPAC pivoted from attacking him to instead concentrate its negative ads on progressive social media influencer and Palestinian American Kat Abughazaleh. And in the 7th District, an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC spent nearly $5 million backing Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who lost to state Rep. La Shawn Ford.
The split scorecard comes a month after AIPAC angered its own centrist allies by going after another fairly pro-Israel candidate, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) — a move that ended up handing the primary to a stronger critic of Israel, progressive Analilia Mejia.
“There was once again a vast amount of money spent and wasted trying to dust up a candidate who, by almost anybody’s reasonable analysis, Israel should be happy to have in Congress supporting a strong U.S.-Israel relationship,” one longtime AIPAC member, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said of the group’s spending against Biss.
AIPAC, the person added, “should take a look at the results in [the 9th District] and New Jersey and reconsider their strategy.”
AIPAC-aligned super PACs spent nearly$22 million in the Illinois primaries, more than one-fifth the total $100 million warchest it has in hand so far for the 2026 midterms, to win two of four open-seat races while losing the one that drove the most national attention.
At his victory party Tuesday night, Biss slammed the group for spending heavily “to buy this seat to support the idea that we can’t accept nuance” on the U.S.-Israel relationship.
“AIPAC found out the hard way — the 9th District is not for sale,” Biss told supporters.
AIPAC pushed back against the notion that the group struggled in Tuesday night’s elections.
“Illinois voters rejected half a dozen anti-Israel candidates across several heavily Democratic open-seat races,” Deryn Sousa, an AIPAC spokesperson, said in a statement Tuesday night. “These results further demonstrate that campaigns defined largely by opposition to AIPAC, our members, and the values we represent continue to fall short on election night.”
The controversial organization, already a foil for Democrats grappling with growing anti-Israel sentiment in their party, is facing fresh animosity and renewed scrutiny over its campaign spending as the U.S. and Israel wage a joint war on Iran that’s further soured Americans on their longtime ally.
Recent polling shows Americans — and Democrats, in particular — shifting further away from Israel. A NBC News poll released this week showed 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic shift from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023. A Quinnipiac University survey showed 44 percent of voters think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel — the highest percentage since the pollsters started asking the question in 2017. Among Democrats, 62 percent think America is too supportive of Israel, compared with just 22 percent who think the support is about right and 8 percent who think it’s not supportive enough.
It’s clear the organization is aware of its standing in Democratic primaries — its ads focused on everything but Israel, accusing candidates of not being progressive enough on other issues. But AIPAC’s involvement became a major talking point for those it was attacking, especially in the 9th District.
The Illinois Democratic delegation likely won’t have a significant ideological shift on Israel from the races’ results. Bean will replace Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, another pro-Israel candidate, who lost his Senate primary contest to Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. Biss’s views on Israel aren’t far from those of outgoing Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who endorsed him and has sharply criticized AIPAC in the past. Rep. Danny Davis has supported Israel but denounced its Gaza intervention; Ford doesn’t appear to have said much publicly on the issue.
The biggest potential change is Miller replacing Rep. Robin Kelly, who has called the war in Gaza a “genocide.” She also didn’t advance through the Illinois Senate primary.
“We consider this a pro-Israel win. We are better off in the Chicago delegation than we were yesterday,” said Patrick Dorton, the spokesperson for the AIPAC super PAC United Democracy Project, pointing to the new incumbents in the Kelly, Schakowsky and Davis seats.
Dorton also argued that if the group’s pop-up super PAC “didn’t go negative with more than a million dollars in spending to defeat Abughazaleh, she may well have beat Biss.”
And AIPAC allies took a more generous read on their group’s performance.
“You win some, you lose some,” said AIPAC ally Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), who backed Fine, Miller and Bean in their races. Schneider added that if a group wins every race they’re involved in, “you probably haven’t pushed the boundaries as far as you can.”
Brian Romick, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, which often overlaps in its preferred candidates with AIPAC, said Tuesday’s results showed that “Israel wasn’t a determinative factor in these primaries” and “none of the extremist anti-Israel candidates won.”
Opponents of AIPAC crowed that voters had spurned the groups’ hardline tactics, including AIPAC’s use of shell PACs to obscure the source of the outside spending. And they held up Biss’ victory in particular as reassurance for candidates wary AIPAC will wade into their primaries that the group can be defeated. Democratic candidates and strategists are bracing for the group to intervene in a range of upcoming House primaries, as well as the Michigan and Minnesota Senate primaries.
Tuesday’s results “should send a clear message to candidates across the country: you do not have to fear AIPAC’s spending or intimidation,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a rival organization that spent $350,000 backing Biss and worked to counter AIPAC in other Illinois House races, said in a statement.
Yet AIPAC is poised to remain formidable through the midterms. One pro-Israel Democratic donor adviser, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said even with AIPAC’s misfires, the money is likely to keep pouring in.
“Their donor talking points aren’t going to be, ‘we only got half.’ They’ll say, ‘we took out two of the worst people,’” said the donor adviser of Tuesday’s results. “They know how to sell it, and there’s no shortage of money.”
Shia Kapos contributed to this report.
CHICAGO — Gov. JB Pritzker emerged as the kingmaker in deep-blue Illinois after pouring millions of dollars and staking his political reputation to deliver his hand-picked Senate candidate a primary victory on Tuesday.
The result strengthens Pritzker’s standing within his party at a critical moment, as he prepares for a November gubernatorial campaign for his third term and looks ahead to a potential presidential run in 2028.
“It’s going to reflect well on him,” retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky said Tuesday night shortly after Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton was declared the winner in the Democratic primary for Illinois Senate.
Robyn Gabel, the Illinois House Majority Leader, added: “I think it will show that he has coattails, and that he has a big following, and that people respect his opinions on who to vote for.”
Pritzker has built a reputation as an influential governor by leveraging institutional authority, strong party support, and his own vast financial resources to shape policy statewide, including addressing energy challenges, cost-of-living concerns and making infrastructure improvements. With Democrats holding control of the state legislature, he has also been able to further strengthen his dominance in Springfield.
And on the national stage, Pritzker has positioned himself among the chief antagonists of President Donald Trump, regularly attacking his immigration enforcement surges, among other issues.
Pritzker’s grip on the party was on full display in downtown Chicago, where he celebrated his uncontested gubernatorial primary victory by touting his accomplishments and attacking Trump as Illinois Democrats stood behind him.
“For working families, the Trump presidency has been an unmitigated disaster. Oil prices are up. Measles is back. Farms are folding. Tariffs have raised the price of groceries and cars, and Illinoisans have been sent abroad to fight another Middle East war,” Pritzker told dozens of cheering supporters. “In response, what is the Illinois Republican Party doing to help everyday people? Nothing.”
The crowd’s enthusiasm was aided by an open bar — a detail noted by some attendees after reports circulated from the watch party of Stratton’s well-funded opponent, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, that his campaign was charging for drinks at the event.
Pritzker, who put millions of dollars into a super PAC supporting Stratton and campaigned regularly alongside his former running mate, brushed off concerns that a potential Stratton loss could tarnish his image. Another candidate he supported, Brad Schneider, won the Democratic nomination for Illinois’ 10th Congressional District.
“I’m not choosing candidates because I’ve taken a poll ahead of time and decided that I can only support a candidate that I know absolutely 100 percent is going to win otherwise,” Pritzker said at a candidate luncheon at Manny’s Deli on Chicago’s near South Side before polls closed. “Here’s what I know, when you’ve got somebody that is hyper-qualified for the job, that’s who I’m supporting.”
But later at Stratton’s watch party on Chicago’s West Side, Pritzker, who belongs to one of the nation’s wealthiest families, acknowledged the stake he held in Tuesday’s outcome.
“A lot of people have suggested this was personal to me,” he told hundreds of Stratton campaign staff and supporters, his voice noticeably strained late into the evening. “They were right. It was.”
The fractious Senate primary was defined by massive spending, racial dynamics and lingering intraparty rivalries. Krishnamoorthi had a $30 million war chest and significant outside support but couldn’t compete with Pritzker’s financial muscle and institutional backing of Stratton.
Rep. Robin Kelly, who came in third in the race, drew criticism from some for potentially splitting the Black vote. She, like Stratton, is Black and there were fears they’d cancel one another out, opening a path for Krishnamoorthi, who took advantage of that and even ran ads propping up Kelly to give himself an edge.
Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, which backed Kelly, issued a rebuke of Pritzker’s involvement in the race earlier this month, accusing the billionaire governor of trying to “tip the scales in Illinois” which she said was “beyond frustrating.”
Kelly reiterated that sentiment before polls closed Tuesday.
“He’s put his thumb on the race. Seventy-three percent of her donations came from one family,” Kelly said Tuesday afternoon, referring to Pritzker’s financial backing of Stratton.
The tensions between Pritzker and Kelly date back to a 2022 power struggle over control of the Illinois Democratic Party, when Kelly was pushed out amid concerns from Pritzker’s allies about her ability to fundraise while serving in Congress. While both sides have since publicly downplayed the feud, the Senate primary reopened old wounds with outside groups and Democratic factions lining up behind different candidates.
Another CBC member, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who previously ran for the White House, said on Capitol Hill prior to polls closing in Illinois that “it would be a damn shame if Robin Kelly” lost.
“Isn’t it a shame that I don’t have billions of dollars?” Booker said. “Look … the way the rules are right now, JB Pritzker as the governor of that state is free to support anybody he wants and he has a tremendous amount of resources. I hold no ill will there.”
Illinois state Rep. Kam Buckner, the speaker pro tempore and a member of the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, defended Pritzker getting involved in the race.
“Political capital is a lot like financial capital, it does not grow because you admire it. It grows because you deploy it,” Buckner said in an interview. “He’s putting his political equity into circulation, which I think is the right thing for him to do.”
CHICAGO — Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss won Tuesday’s Democratic primary to succeed Rep. Jan Schakowsky, dealing a blow to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in a race that had turned into a referendum on the group’s ability to influence the party.
Biss, whose mother is Israeli and whose grandparents are Holocaust survivors, has sharply criticized Israel’s war in Gaza — and faced an onslaught of attack ads from a group aligned with AIPAC as a result.
He defeated a crowded field that included social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian American who is a more vocal critic, as well as AIPAC’s preferred candidate, state Sen. Laura Fine. Biss is now favored to win the general election in the heavily Democratic district.
The race had become one of the country’s most closely watched Democratic primaries, in large part because of AIPAC’s involvement in a district whose population is more than 10 percent Jewish and which has had a Jewish representative for more than 60 years.
An AIPAC-aligned group spent more than $5 million dollars in ads to boost Fine and attack Biss, then later, Abughazaleh. That group pulled down its anti-Biss attacks at the end of the race, before a different shell PAC emerged to prop up another low-polling progressive in the race in an attempt to divide the progressive vote.
Biss, meanwhile, had the endorsement of the more liberal pro-Israel organization J Street and publicly slammed AIPAC’s interference in Democratic primaries.
He is a former University of Chicago math professor who also served in the Illinois House and Senate and lost the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary to current Gov. JB Pritzker.
Schakowsky, the 14‑term incumbent who announced her retirement last year, formally backed Biss in January, praising his legislative experience and alignment with her priorities (they share similar views on Israel as well as other issues). That endorsement, coupled with his deep roots in the district, helped Biss fend off the crowded field and negative attacks.
Throughout the campaign, Biss pitched a broad policy platform that included boosting federal investment in affordable housing, expanding Social Security benefits and banning stock trading by members of Congress. He also drew national attention last year for his confrontations with federal immigration enforcement agents at a local gas station and his presence at anti‑ICE protests.
CHICAGO — Former Rep. Melissa Bean won the Democratic primary for Illinois’ 8th District, cementing her political comeback in a solidly blue seat more than a decade after she left Congress.
Bean, a moderate who served in the House from 2005 to 2011, defeated several progressive challengers on Tuesday in the race to replace Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who launched a bid for the Senate.
Her win was heavily boosted by outside spending: A group called Elect Chicago Women, aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, poured nearly $4 million into the race to support Bean, and another AI-focused committee ran ads in favor of her.
Bean, who had lost her seat during the 2010 Tea Party wave, built her campaign around a message of pragmatism — an approach she argued voters were seeking amid a hyper-partisan national political climate.
“What I’m hearing mostly from people is they would love to see a little more boring and a lot less drama from government,” Bean said during the race. “They just want to know [if] they elect you, you’ll put your head down, you’ll get the work done and you’ll deliver.”
After leaving office, Bean worked in the private sector at finance firms including JPMorgan Chase and Mesirow Financial before deciding to run again.
The race drew a crowded Democratic field of candidates who positioned themselves to Bean’s left. Among them was tech entrepreneur Junaid Ahmed, who had challenged Krishnamoorthi four years ago. He argued during this year’s campaign that the district needed someone prepared to challenge President Donald Trump directly, and he was endorsed by prominent progressive lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
The AIPAC affiliate backing Bean saw his candidacy as a threat. In the final days of the race, the group spent $664,000 in ads against him.
Another candidate, Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison, also emphasized a progressive agenda, arguing the Trump administration poses a threat to health care access, LGBTQ+ rights and reproductive freedom.
The progressive Justice Democrats PAC spent $56,000 in attack ads on Bean, but that hardly made a dent against the millions of dollars outside groups spent to assist her.
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