Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton has won Illinois’s Democratic US Senate primary—by a lot.
Several of our EWA groups hosted her in this competitive primary, and we were proud to feature her at our Convening and on two national Zooms, including from the campaign trail just last week!
In a solid Democratic state like Illinois, she’s almost guaranteed to be the state’s next US Senator, meaning we will soon have three Black women in the US Senate—a new record.
That’s incredible progress from as recently as 2024, when up to that point only one Black woman had served at a time in the US Senate. It was only last year that two Black women began serving at the same time: Sens. Angela Alsobrooks (MD) and Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE).
Before that, it had been nearly two decades between the first Black woman to serve in the US Senate—Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, also of Illinois, who left office in 1999—and Sen. Kamala Harris (CA), who took office in 2017. Kamala was then replaced by Sen. Laphonza Butler (CA), who chose not to run for a full term.
Now, Juliana will join their ranks. Congratulations to her. We look forward to seeing what she’ll do with her newly won platform.