Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton went on the offensive Monday night against U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly in the first live-broadcast debate in the heated Democratic primary race for retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat.
Stratton attacked Krishnamoorthi just a few minutes into the hour-long debate hosted by the Sun-Times, WBEZ and UChicago’s Institute of Politics and International House, slamming the congressman because he “voted to thank” the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and “accepted funding from ICE contractors.”
That barb nodded to Sun-Times reporting that the congressman has received campaign contributions from supporters of President Donald Trump, as well as an executive at a company contracted by ICE.
“That is not the example of somebody who’s going to stand up to Donald Trump and fight for all of our communities. I want to abolish ICE,” Stratton said during a sometimes chippy battle among the front-running contenders for the highest-profile race on the March 17 primary ballot.
Krishnamoorthi rejected the notion of thanking ICE, since “99% of that resolution was about condemning anti-semitism… I’m going to condemn antisemitism eight days out of a week.”
As for the campaign contribution from an ICE contractor, “we donated it to Illinois migrant rights groups,” Krishnamoorthi said, later retorting that he was the only candidate who has “actually done the hard work of trying to hold ICE accountable.”
“I’m the only candidate on this stage that actually inspected an ICE facility itself. And what I learned there was shocking… I believe we have to abolish Trump’s ICE,” he said.
Stratton pressed Krishnamoorthi at every opportunity: “No matter what you say now, you already demonstrated that you’re not gonna show up when it matters.”
Kelly said standing up to Trump is “not just about fighting. You have to have a record of accomplishments.” But she got in shots of her own, responding defiantly to Stratton’s criticisms of both candidates for taking campaign cash from corporate political action committees.
“Check the record. Check how I vote. I vote like the people who put me in office want me to vote,” Kelly said. “And the corporate PAC money I take — you see who I take corporate PAC money from, unlike the commercial that the lieutenant governor has, that is paid for by dark money.”
That PAC — which is tied to Stratton’s two-term running mate, Gov. JB Pritzker — launched a new digital ad just before Monday’s debate, declaring “every candidate on the debate stage knows what ICE is doing to our state and our country,” but that only Stratton “will do what it takes to stop it.”
Krishnamoorthi fired back at “Stratton’s hypocrisy,” pointing to another Sun-Times analysis that found the lieutenant governor has a long history of taking corporate campaign dollars for her state campaigns.
Krishnamoorthi, who held a ninefold campaign fundraising advantage entering October, has been airing TV ads since July, including his latest which came out just before he took the debate stage.
Stratton took a question over whether there should be term or age limits for members of Congress as an opportunity to roast Krishnamoorthi for getting only four bills passed during a decade-long tenure.
“And you know what those four bills are? To rename post offices. That’s not the kind of fight that people are looking for,” Stratton said.
Krishnamoorthi said the number is actually 76, pointing to other legislative initiatives he partnered on.
“I should’ve brought some body armor here,” Krishnamoorthi joked to several hundred attendees at the campus event. He later said Stratton “didn’t have any policy ideas. She had to attack.”
Asked to name a Trump policy they support, Kelly said she’s no supporter of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but she appreciates his focus on “wellness and exercise and eating properly.”
Krishnamoorthi said he agrees with Trump that “we have to be concerned about our manufacturing workers and what’s happening to them” in the trade war with China.
Stratton said “there’s nothing that I’m going to say today that I can think of that I agree with Donald Trump on.”
She was the only candidate to say she wouldn’t support Sen. Chuck Schumer as the party’s Senate leader, with Kelly and Krishnamoorthi saying they were undecided.
Asked if they’d support Mayor Brandon Johnson if he seeks reelection, each candidate was noncommittal.
They’ll spar again in a televised debate at 7 p.m. Thursday on ABC7 Chicago.
Also running for the Democratic nomination are Steve Botsford Jr., Sean Brown, Awisi A. Bustos, Jonathan Dean, Bryan Maxwell, Kevin Ryan and Christopher Swann.
The Democratic primary winner will advance to the Nov. 3 general election against the winner of the Republican field: R. Cary Capparelli, Casey Chlebek, Jeannie Evans, Pamela Denise Long, Jimmy Lee Tillman II or Don Tracy.