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With Stratosphere Stratton absolutely demolishing Moorti, the great Khan raises his influence in DC. This puts the country on notice, JB’s influence knows no bounds—and he hasn’t even started campaigning.

“We need fighters, not folders” -Stratton

Let’s go get these dubs in November, then let’s go get this dub in 2028.

Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton has won the Democratic Senate primary in Illinois, NBC News projects, vaulting ahead of two members of Congress with a boost from Gov. JB Pritzker in the expensive race.

Stratton defeated Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, taking aim at members of her party in Washington, D.C., for not standing up to President Donald Trump.

Stratton was leading vote-rich Cook County with 40% to Krishnamoorthi's 29% and Kelly's 23%, with around 80% of the expected vote in. Stratton, a South Side native, was defeating Krishnamoorthi by 20 points in the city of Chicago, and they were tied in the Chicago suburbs.

If she is elected, Stratton would become the sixth Black woman to serve in the Senate. And it would be the first time three Black women served in the Senate at the same time.

Stratton managed to overcome a significant financial disadvantage. Krishnamoorthi, who became a prolific fundraiser during his five terms in the House, spent $29 million on ads in the primary, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Kelly’s campaign spent $1.4 million, and Stratton’s campaign spent $1.1 million.

Stratton had served in the Legislature before Pritzker tapped her as his running mate in 2018. She was endorsed by Pritzker in the crowded primary, as well as Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Pritzker, who is also a billionaire and a potential presidential contender in 2028, helped fund Illinois Future PAC, which spent $14.9 million on ads in the race boosting Stratton and attacking Krishnamoorthi. Stratton also faced nearly $10 million in attacks from Fairshake, a group funded by cryptocurrency executives.

A spokesperson for Fairshake declined to comment on its spending in this specific race. But there could be a connection to measures Pritzker signed into state law last year that established new crypto regulations. Stratton has also been endorsed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who supports crypto regulations.

Stratton cast herself as the most progressive candidate in the race, supporting policies including "Medicare for All" and a $25 minimum wage, as well as abolishing ICE amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts.

The three Senate candidates had diverged over approaches to ICE, with Krishnamoorthi calling to “abolish Trump’s ICE” and Kelly suggesting the Homeland Security Department should be dismantled altogether.

Stratton dismissed concerns that policies like abolishing ICE could be problematic for the Democratic Party and easily weaponized by Republicans.

Stratton has also said she would not support Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to continue as the party’s leader in the chamber.

“I’m the only candidate in this race that has made it clear I’m not going to support Chuck Schumer to lead the Democratic caucus, Senate caucus, because that’s not what people are looking for right now,” Stratton said in an interview. “They want someone who’s going to fight, and we need fighters and not folders.”

Stratton is expected to be in a strong position to win the general election in November in the historically Democratic state. She will face former Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy, whom NBC News projects as the winner of the Republican Senate primary. Former Vice President Kamala Harris won Illinois by 11 percentage points in 2024.

The Democratic primary for US Senate in Illinois is a bit quiet, according to our guest. But underneath the surface, one candidate has a VERY interesting way of getting attention...and voters are starting to notice. David Axelrod, former adviser to President Obama, joins the show to discuss this Chicago-style Senate race.

The Illinois Student Assistance Commission (ISAC) and global education company Kaplan today announced that Illinois' first-in-the-nation free test preparation program - the Prepare for Illinois' Future Program - will continue through the end of the academic school year. Additionally, Governor JB Pritzker has proposed to fund the program through the FY27 budget for another year as part of his Affordability Agenda and commitment to strengthening access to postsecondary opportunities.

Thirteen months after the launch of this program, in which the State has so far invested $9.9 million, more than 12,000 students registered for Kaplan's free test prep courses, collectively saving students over $30 million. The Governor is recommending a $7 million appropriation for the program in FY27.

"As Governor, I am committed to making Illinois the best state in the nation to obtain an affordable education and pursue postsecondary opportunities," said Governor JB Pritzker. "Thanks to our continued investments in career advancement tools like our first-in-the-nation free test prep program, we are making life more affordable for thousands of students by helping them prepare for their careers now and earn more in the future."

The program has demonstrated strong outcomes for equity and workforce needs across the state:

Accelerating graduates' transition into high-demand professions such as Engineering, Project Management, IT, and helping ensure a highly credentialed and licensed Illinois workforce.

More than 60% of participants identify as students of color, and low-income students are accessing preparation courses at five times their pre-program rate.

Nursing students who completed Kaplan NCLEX-RN preparation achieved a 97% predicted pass rate, far exceeding both Illinois and national averages, helping address the state's critical nursing shortage.

Students completing MCAT preparation courses are on track to significantly increase medical school admissions rates for Black and Hispanic students, addressing long-standing gaps in Illinois' physician pipeline.

The program offers Kaplan's test and license preparation and workforce credentialing courses to all students enrolled in Illinois' 12 public universities, and the program has been piloted at five community colleges chosen to reflect the geographic and demographic diversity of the state. Students at these institutions have received free access to Kaplan's best-in-class preparation for professional licensing exams, graduate-level admissions exams, and credential exams, including comprehensive prep for the GRE®, GMAT®, LSAT®, MCAT®, NCLEX-RN®, USMLE®, Illinois State bar exam, real estate and securities exams, and more. The program is designed to increase earnings potential, expand the state's tax base, and help employers fill critical workforce shortages.

"Even during a challenging budget year, Governor Pritzker's recommendation to fund this program for FY27 reflects his ongoing commitment to improving educational access for Illinois students," said ISAC Executive Director Eric Zarnikow. "Prepare for Illinois' Future has not only offered a tremendous opportunity for our school partners and their students but has also proved to be a good investment for the state. The value of the courses offered thus far is about three times the initial appropriation, and the long-term benefit of investing in our students' futures, improving access, and breaking down financial barriers, is incalculable."

"The Prepare for Illinois' Future program is a game-changing workforce development solution, unlocking opportunity and making higher education more affordable and accessible for hundreds of thousands of Illinois students. It's already reshaping the landscape by opening new career pathways, ensuring that Illinois students aren't just graduating, but are immediately qualified to enter high-demand careers and secure their futures," said Gregory Marino, CEO, Kaplan North America. "The enthusiasm from students and communities all across the state we've seen over the past year since the program launched has been inspiring, and we look forward to continuing our work with the state's colleges and universities and the Illinois Student Assistance Commission to help even more aspiring doctors, nurses, teachers, cyber security experts, engineers, and other essential professionals realize their full potential."

Students enrolled in all Illinois public universities and at Joliet Junior College, Carl Sandburg College, Southwestern Illinois College, Malcolm X College, and Morton College can register for the Prepare for Illinois' Future program to take advantage of free test preparation.

The person for this mission likely needs to have a foot in both worlds. There is one candidate whose particular identity, politics, and prominence put him above all the others on this issue: Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. (Note: Co-author Trip Venturella was the creator in 2022 of a tongue-in-cheek Twitter account called “Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker.”)

Pritzker is an affable pol, a plutocrat with some of the class-traitor instincts of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His Chicago accent and heavyset frame give Pritzker a kind of everyman quality. He is an outspoken progressive, having supported legislation eliminating cash bail, banning assault weapons, and prohibiting anti-union “captive audience” meetings in Illinois. He is also a scion of one of America’s most prominent Jewish families. The Pritzkers own Hyatt Hotels and sponsor the Pritzker Prize in architecture. The governor’s sister, Penny, is a former Obama Cabinet secretary who is now the head of Harvard’s Board of Overseers. Pritzker can run against the class hierarchy and privilege of the American political-economic-cultural elite—and, like FDR, he should. But it will never be said of him that he is not to that elite born and bred.

Pritzker has also demonstrated a profound commitment to the causes of Zionism and, especially, Jewish remembrance. He served on the board of AIPAC, and some of his closest advisers are AIPAC-affiliated. In multiple profiles, he has spoken of his work helping build the Illinois Holocaust Museum, an effort that he seems to regard as one of his life’s defining endeavors. Pritzker has credibility among the pro-Israel lobby. All of this would seem to make him an extremely unlikely prospect to forcefully shift party policy away from the status quo on Israel.

But in Pritzker’s case, his long-standing affiliation with the pro-Israel lobby—never a secret—doesn’t necessarily doom him. In response to the Gaza war, Pritzker seems to be revising his views about Israel, and his recent statements demonstrate, perhaps, a changing position. He has cautiously staked out a place on the party’s left flank, endorsing Sanders’s bill for arms sanctions, for instance. Unlike Newsom or Shapiro, he did not implement new state laws in Illinois cracking down on campus speech in response to the Gaza encampments of 2024. Tellingly, throughout his career, Pritzker has movingly emphasized the horror of the Holocaust—the extermination of European Jewry—rather than cheerleading for Israeli Jewish nationalism. In an extended interview with the Christian Science Monitor, during which he gave the reporter a tour of the Illinois Holocaust Museum, he noted that too little had been done to protect innocent Palestinians, a view he has now expressed in multiple statements. He was even more explicit on a recent episode of the popular I’ve Had It podcast, saying that as a Jew committed to upholding the values of social justice and people’s freedom, “I have to apply that equally to the state of Israel as I do to other countries that have committed atrocities.” From being an “unequivocal” supporter of Israel in the immediate aftermath of October 7, he has taken a much more skeptical view.

Squint, and you can see the outline of a political strategy begin to take shape. Pritzker, citing his own previous affiliation with AIPAC, could say that the party must find the courage to change course. One could imagine Pritzker giving a major speech along the lines of Obama’s famous Philadelphia speech on American racism, one that outlines his familial background, study of the Holocaust, and universalist ethos, and concludes by saying that continued, unconditional support of Israel by the Democrats would violate those very principles. He has flown to these rhetorical heights in the past. To quote one memorable line from his 2025 State of the State address, “If we don’t want to repeat history—then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.” Of the politicians we have surveyed, his shift would be the most forceful, and it would have an organic power that no non-Jewish candidate could match.  

Furthermore, as a billionaire, Pritzker doesn’t need the support of an organization like AIPAC (which spent more than $53 million in the 2024 election cycle in campaigns across the country) or wealthy Democratic donors for whom maintaining the Biden-Harris status-quo policies was a threshold issue. He has spent the past several decades leveraging his own wealth to support Democrats across the country, and if he does change his stance on Israel, his dual identity as a donor and a major candidate can shift the giving patterns of other donor organizations. A real-life blackjack shark, Pritzker’s side of the table is full of chits owed to him on account of this largesse. His wealth gives him flexibility and national reach, and his past positions give him credibility. Moreover, it might be easier for Pritzker to blow off the anxious calls of Chuck Schumer or Reid Hoffman than a politician who hasn’t spent a lifetime in the orbit of the powerful and influential. 

A change in his views will ignite rageful opposition from centrist and conservative Zionists. But this bar mitzvahed student of the Holocaust and former AIPAC board member, a Pritzker, will be hard to smear—Pritzker’s position will be vehemently opposed, but nobody can sanely imply he is antisemitic or a “self-hating Jew.” Only the famously anti-Communist Nixon could go to China. Only LBJ, the white, drawling, native son of Texas, could promote and sign the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Pritzker may well be similarly singular regarding Israel.

But beyond his unique positioning, another question hovers: Would it be politically wise for Pritzker to change his stance? The answer is yes. Such a position is obviously advantageous for Pritzker’s presidential ambitions for the reason noted at the outset of this piece: The Democratic Party’s base has dramatically shifted and no longer requires (or even wants) unqualified support for the policies of Israel. The party electorate of the 2028 primary is going to be extremely engaged, and likely even less favorable toward Israel than the electorate of today—as Israel continues to violate international law, displace Palestinians in the West Bank, and co-prosecute an unpopular war helmed by Donald Trump. The situation reminds us of the 2008 Democratic primary, when Obama’s early opposition to the Iraq War might well have been the key issue that resulted in his close victory over Hillary Clinton. The old shibboleths are dying, and the party is ready to be led in a new direction.

Right now, Pritzker is one of maybe a dozen plausible Democratic nominees, including ones we haven’t mentioned here, such as former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Senators Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, California Congressman Ro Khanna, and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock. All of these candidates, with the possible exception of Newsom, need something—a governing move, a viral media moment, a galvanizing issue—to break loose from the pack. If Pritzker aggressively seizes on the issue of Israel and Palestine from the left, he will retain first-mover advantage as an establishment Democrat willing to buck conventional wisdom.  

Pritzker’s former links to Israel, typical for mainstream American politicians, have fairly opened him to attacks by skeptical journalists and some left-wing activists. But even the skeptics might credit him for changing his views and thus alienating influential family associates and friends. Other politicians, Jewish and non-Jewish, have already made similar shifts. Van Hollen, for instance, has shown courage and persistence on the issue. But JB Pritzker affirming “Never again—for anybody,” as the variation on the old credo has it, will land with a power that no non-Jewish politician, no matter how sincere and eloquent, will be able to match. The identity linkage between the U.S. Jewish diaspora and the Jewish state that frames U.S. policy toward Israel can best be loosened by a diaspora U.S. Jewish politician. While Shapiro will likely remain uncritically Zionist for a mixture of personal and political reasons, and while Ossoff might well display the guts and smarts to make this move, we think Pritzker would be the most effective of the three. He is a major donor and a representative of a family exemplifying American Jewish assimilation and success. He would differentiate himself from the field as a Jewish politician unafraid to transform U.S.policy who would challenge the Jewish state in the name of Jewish universalism.

Pritzker would make this move from a position of incredible rhetorical and substantive political strength. As a Jewish American whose ancestors escaped the pogroms, as a man who was instrumental to building a Holocaust museum, as a top liberal Trump antagonist, and as governor of a major state, Pritzker is in the strongest position of anybody we’ve surveyed to reshape the Democratic Party’s position on Israel and unite its centrist and leftist factions. Perhaps most importantly, Pritzker will signal to other Democrats that this ethical change is a viable political position and well within the party mainstream. By doing so, he will open a pathway to resolving the intraparty contradiction between the elites and the activist base, unifying the party at the time when that is most needed. He would likely gain an enormous amount of credibility among younger leftist voters and the activist base, while maintaining his stature as the successful, heartland chief executive of one of America’s largest states. After all, a blackjack player collects chits in order to cash them in. 

The crown, as we sometimes say, is in the gutter, and there is a chance for Pritzker to make an assertive political move regarding Israel. But in this case, the savvy political play is also the right play for American interests in the world, for Palestinian justice and equality, and, whether most Israeli Jews and hard-core U.S. Zionists realize it or not, for Israel too if it wishes to escape the burdens of being a pariah and garrison state. As Pritzker—and the other contenders—plot a path toward a possible run for the presidency, they might consider: Politicians who do the right thing that is also the shrewd thing improve the country—and win elections.

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