Juliana Stratton wins open U.S. Senate seat in Illinois

Juliana Stratton is projected to win the race to become Illinois’ next U.S. senator, keeping Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) seat for the Democrats.

The Associated Press called the race for Stratton on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m. CST, the moment polls closed.

Although Durbin’s retirement announcement opened the seat up for the first time since 1997, Stratton had been set to cruise to victory over Bailey for months; Cook Political Report marked the race as “solid D.” Stratton’s main competition came in the bruising primary, where she defeated U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly despite the former being considered to be the frontrunner.

Stratton will finish up her second term as Illinois lieutenant governor before taking the Senate seat, where she helped lead the state for eight years with Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D). Although she focused a lot of her campaign on being against President Donald Trump, she also ran as a progressive that endorses a $25-an-hour minimum wage and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). She’s now set to become Illinois’ second ever Black woman senator.

Meanwhile, Tracy said that “the jury’s still out” on if President Donald Trump’s tariffs are effective, and he blamed people killed by federal immigration officers this year (which he falsely called “illegal immigrants”) for their own deaths.