Category: Politics

MIDLAND, Michigan — Pete Buttigieg is known for going everywhere to get his message out in the media. In 2026, he’s taking that strategy offline, too, traveling virtually everywhere.

A source close to Buttigieg tells Playbook he’s spent half of 2026 on the road, hitting 10 states so far — including battleground states Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and his adopted home state Michigan, plus a multiday swing across for-now-first-in-the-nation New Hampshire. And he’s not yet hawking books like some of his would-be 2028 rivals. He’s stumping for candidates up and down the ballot.

While potential 2028ers like Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro focus on flexing midterm-year dominance in their own backyards, Buttigieg is embarking on a more national project to position himself as a super surrogate not confined to specific geography or demographics. It’s a strategy that could help him counter the base of power that comes from holding elected office.

Buttigieg laid out his midterm strategy to Playbook in an exclusive interview after gripping and grinning and taking selfies along a ropeline: “The basic idea is to make myself useful to candidates and causes that I care about and that we all need to succeed,” he said at Mi Element Grains & Grounds, a combination microbrewery, bakery and coffeehouse, after launching a canvassing effort backing Chedrick Greene in a special election to determine control of the Michigan state Senate.

“Every kind of state, red, blue and purple, there are races going on and fights going on that I want to make sure I’m part of,” Buttigieg told Playbook. “And they are all often very different from each other, but what they have in common is leaders who are very rooted in a sense of place. They’re very much of where they’re from, and I think represent a big part of what the future for Democrats is going to look like.”

Buttigieg has increased his engagement with Black candidates like Greene and the community more broadly, addressing a perceived weakness. In Alabama, Buttigieg joined civil rights leaders and community members in Selma for the Bridge Crossing Jubilee and Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, and made remarks at a unity breakfast and Tabernacle Baptist Church. In Birmingham, he joined a roundtable with business owners from the Historic 4th Avenue Business District.

A source familiar with Buttigieg’s past outreach to the Black community described his efforts a “natural extension” of his work on his 2020 presidential campaign and in the Biden administration.

“It’s a recognition that engagement in those spaces and showing up in 2026 is going to be a huge indicator of who’s going to be the leader of this party,” this person, granted anonymity to candidly appraise Buttigieg’s approach, told POLITICO. “I think it’s really smart to think along those lines, and to show, right? Not just talk about it, but to actually show and demonstrate it.”

He also campaigned for Shawn Harris in former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s deep-red Georgia congressional district, and gave an interview to Black creator Hood Anchor Ye alongside Rep. Nikema Williams. He also attended Sen. Raphael Warnock’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he received a very warm welcome.

“I’m very focused on coalition right now, and that includes pillars of our Democratic coalition, like the building trades workers I was with in Toledo or in Nevada, and certainly Black voters who are so vital to the past, present and future of the party,” Buttigieg said.

A February Emerson poll found Buttigieg had about 6 percent support among Black voters; California Gov. Gavin Newsom had 17 percent and former VP Kamala Harris had 36 percent.

“He had a remarkable run in 2020 and ultimately, one of the, perhaps the greatest obstacle, is that he didn’t have much of a relationship with African American voters,” David Axelrod, the former strategist for former President Barack Obama and longtime Buttigieg ally, told Playbook. “And the fact that he’s spending a lot of time communing with Black voters across the country even if in the service of the midterm elections, is a reflection that he’s not headed for early retirement.”

There is also, of course, the fact that Buttigieg has a newly crafted stump speech that walks an average voter through their day and overlays his policy hopes for them, something reminiscent of James Joyce’s “Ulysses”. “I don’t want to overdo that, but yes, as you know, my whole thing is the politics of everyday life. And one way to get that across is to just literally walk through everyday life and all of the hundreds of moments in that day that are shaped by political choices.”

Asked about whether he thought the narrative of his struggles with Black voters matched the

reality of what he was seeing on the ground, Buttigieg redirected. “This year is very much not about me,” he said. “What it’s really all part of for me is where are there leaders that I can help and where it’s going to make a difference to engage.”

Beyond that, Buttigieg’s travels and how he’s talking is revealing about his potential trajectory: For starters, he’s laser-focused on building a majority Democratic governing coalition. He used the word no fewer than 10 times.

Buttigieg insisted that Democrats “should be able to build a supermajority coalition” based on the party’s platform. He has noted in the past most Americans support paid family leave, raising the federal minimum wage, raising taxes on the wealthy, universal background checks, and a public health insurance option. “If we can’t get those two-thirds supported positions over 50 percent that means we’re missing something in terms of the coalition we built.”

But as potential candidates like Newsom seek to emulate Trump’s smashmouth social media style, Buttigieg is more focused on creating a Democratic version of MAGA’s sweeping coalition. That means Buttigieg’s 2026 project is to build a big tent in nature — not a matter of pure ideology. In Pennsylvania, for example, Buttigieg held a well-attended event with Bob Brooks, the bellwether Lehigh Valley Democratic congressional candidate running to flip Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. Brooks, a Pennsylvania firefighter, supports Medicare for All, which Buttigieg opposed in his presidential run.

“It is really important that we understand what it means that this president stitched together this very unlikely crew that includes traditional Republicans, Libertarians, authoritarians and white nationalists,” Buttigieg said. “We have to have a bigger, better, different coalition.”

In the next few weeks, Buttigieg is expected to cross another battleground off his list, with a stop in North Carolina where he’ll campaign for Democrats, as well as two redder states: a town hall in Oklahoma and a stop in Montana, where he is planning to boost “The Montana Plan,” a ballot initiative to curtail corporations from spending money on political candidates or ballot issues.

“We’re trying to get everywhere we can,” Buttigieg said. “Including places in the same way that — you know, I think Fox News is this kind of place — places where people don’t hear enough from us, because I think there are potential members of our coalition to be found.”

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​Politics

Ruben Gallego wants to make Democrats fun again

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​Politics

Two companies with ties to veteran political operatives received at least $23 million in commissions for their role in the controversial Department of Homeland Security ad campaign that helped lead to Secretary Kristi Noem’s ouster.

One of the firms, Safe America Media, received at least $15.2 million and was formed last February just a few days before it was awarded the limited-bid contract to work on the overall $220 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign, according to an internal DHS memo and three people familiar with the contracts who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the contracts. Safe America Media was run by Republican operatives Mike McElwain and Patrick McCarthy, who have ties to a firm that did extensive media buying on President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.

The second firm, People Who Think, received at least $7.7 million from its 10 percent commission on a portion of the $220 million, according to the memo, which was written by DHS Deputy Under Secretary for Management Paul Stackhouse, and reviewed by POLITICO. People Who Think was co-founded by Jay Connaughton, who did work for Trump’s 2016 campaign and has reportedly worked for other conservative politicians and causes.

The March 3 DHS memo noted there was only a “limited competition” for the awarded contracts because of the “urgent and compelling need” for the ad campaign. It also stated that People Who Think’s 10 percent commission for international advertising and Safe America Media’s 12 percent commission for domestic advertising was below the industry norm of 15 percent.

Besides military recruiting efforts and Covid-19-related campaigns, the DHS ads were the most expensive U.S. government marketing campaign in the last 10 years, Bloomberg reported.

The information about the contracts add new details to the ongoing fallout over DHS’s $220 million ad campaign, which included a video of a cowboy-hat clad Noem riding a horse at Mount Rushmore. It also highlights how political operatives were awarded contracts worth millions of dollars with seemingly little oversight or guardrails — including from President Donald Trump, who White House officials have said did not sign off on the ad campaign.

The ads became a sore spot within the White House, including with Trump, because they fed into a perception that Noem used her position to set herself up for a future political run.

“Safe America Media submitted a proposal for and was awarded a contract to support DHS’s nationwide public awareness campaign, and committed substantial resources to meet an accelerated timeline on budget,” Safe America Media lawyer Joseph Folio said in a statement to POLITICO. “We look forward to providing additional information to address inaccuracies in the public reporting and ensure the record accurately reflects the scope and context of that work.” It’s unclear what he is referring to and a spokesperson didn’t respond to a follow-up question.

McCarthy, McElwain and Connaughton didn’t respond to requests for comment and People Who Think could not be reached for comment. A spokesperson for DHS declined to comment.

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana, along with Democrats, grilled Noem when she testified before Congress in early March about the DHS ad campaign. At one point during the hearing, a clearly frustrated Tillis threatened to halt all Senate business if Noem refused to provide information about immigration enforcement in his home state, while Kennedy probed Noem about the ads and derided them for only being “effective in your name recognition.”

Noem has defended the campaign by saying the ads helped encourage two million immigrants to self-deport and thus saved billions of dollars.

Noem was also asked during the hearing about the Strategy Group,which worked to make some of the ads for Safe America Media. The Strategy Group is run by Ben Yoho, the husband of Noem’s former right-hand communications aide Tricia McLaughlin. McLaughlin has said she recused herself from the campaign, and DHS general counsel James Percival has backed her up publicly on questions about the matter and said she was not involved in selecting subcontractors.

In a response to inquiries from Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), both members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Yoho said his company was only hired as a subcontractor by Safe America Media for ad production worth $226,000.

Asked about his role in this ad campaign, Yoho referred POLITICO to the letter.

Welch’s office told POLITICO that they have talked with legal representatives for People Who Think and Safe America Media but have not yet received responses to their questions. They said they expect to hear from them soon.

Safe America Media LLC placed some of the DHS ads through Strategic Media Services Inc., which received more than $269 million from Trump’s campaign in 2024, according to FEC records. SMS used the same office address on corporate registrations between 2013 and 2021 as Designated Market Media Inc., which McElwain is the president of.

SMS didn’t respond to a request for comment.

​Politics

Congressional Black Caucus members, after a stinging loss in the Illinois Democratic Senate primary, are training their ire on Gov. JB Pritzker — and saying it’s on him to rehabilitate the relationship.

After Pritzker’s outsized financial support for Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton helped lift her to victory, lawmakers vented frustrations that his money unfairly tilted the race in her favor and away from their candidate, Rep. Robin Kelly, a CBC member who finished a distant third. And as Pritzker eyes a 2028 presidential bid, some members, cognizant that the path to winning the Democratic Party’s nomination will run through the caucus, signaled they won’t forget that he crossed them this round.

“He has to justify what he did,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). “I’m sure at some point if he decides to run, he’ll have to come with that justification. As to whether or not it has merit or not, remains to be seen.”

Pritzker’s money helped put Stratton on the path to becoming just the sixth Black senator in U.S. history. But by boxing out Kelly, he frayed his relationship with the caucus, which holds significant sway over which candidates break through with Black voters — a large and powerful voting bloc the billionaire governor will need if he chooses to run for the White House.

“Keep in mind, the Democratic candidate for president that prevails has to go through [the CBC],” said Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio). “The CBC is very strategic and so if there is an issue … we will lay out our framework for what it will take” to get our endorsement, she added.

Many top CBC officials are in no rush to make the first move to mend fences.

“We don’t need to reach out to the governor,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, adding that the group is focused on midterm races and delivering House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries the speaker’s gavel.

“Others are going to have to reach out to us,” he said of Pritzker. “Those conversations happen when those conversations happen.”

Pritzker’s political arm issued a statement in response saying he was “proud” to support Stratton, Illinois’ first Black lieutenant governor: “With only six black women having served in the U.S. Senate throughout its history, Gov. Pritzker supported his partner in governance because he’s worked side by side with her for almost a decade and knows she will deliver for the people of Illinois,” Jordan Abudayyeh, Pritzker’s spokesperson, said.

His team did not address questions about CBC members’ concerns, but did point to Rep. Jim Clyburn, the powerful South Carolina Democrat, saying ahead of the election that Pritzker was “free to support” anyone.

Clyburn on Wednesday told POLITICO he would “expect” for Pritzker to support his No. 2 and that he was not focused on 2028.

Still, lawmakers’ veiled threats lay bare the difficulties Pritzker could face beyond Tuesday’s primary. And they underscore the duality the CBC is navigating as high-profile defeats of their members in Illinois and Texas raise questions about their political influence — even as they celebrate Stratton’s victory.

In interviews with more than a dozen CBC members on Wednesday, they made clear their irritation is not with Stratton, who many said will be welcomed into the caucus if she wins as expected in November. Their indignation rests solely with Pritzker, who they accused of playing kingmaker by pouring millions of dollars into propping up Stratton.

Tensions flared between the powerful legislative voting bloc and the billionaire governor in early March. CBC Chair Yvette Clarke lashed out at Pritzker, saying she was “beyond frustrated” with the governor for “tipping the scales” a nod to his funneling of $5 million from his super PAC to help catapult Stratton into contention with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who for much of the primary was leading in the polls and started with a massive cash advantage.

Many CBC members, and Clarke specifically, took Pritzker’s presence in the race as a snub to Kelly, who had a long-standing beef with Pritzker after he worked to oust her as chair of the Illinois Democratic Party in 2022. While both Kelly and Pritzker were said to have moved beyond it, the Senate campaign reopened old wounds.

Clarke issued a statement — some 12 hours after the Illinois Senate primary was called — to congratulate Stratton on her victory, calling it “a significant moment for Illinois and the nation that calls for unity” before pivoting to praise Kelly.

The CBC chair on Wednesday said she and Pritzker had not spoken.

“I’m sure there’ll be a moment where we’ll have a conversation,” Clarke said. When asked if she felt like she needed to initiate a conversation with the governor, she responded tersely. “No, I don’t.”

Former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman elected to the body in U.S. history, endorsed Stratton in the race. She took issue with CBC members’ intense focus on the governor’s role in the process instead of the historic outcome, and said the group seemed more focused on backing its own than expanding Black representation.

“To weigh in on this race was just backwards,” she told POLITICO. “[Kelly] was a member of the caucus and so it’s understandable on that level. But at the same time, Juliana deserved at least something from that group.”

Many current CBC members refrained from attacking Pritzker directly, however — another sign of the complex politics at play. Congressional Democrats want Pritzker’s billions to help bankroll their bid to retake control of the House and make Jeffries, the minority leader and New York Democrat, the first Black speaker. They’ve already been working him behind the scenes.

“I’ve already reached out to Governor Pritzker,” said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), a former CBC chair. “I’ve talked to him this morning, in fact, and I’ll talk to him in the weeks and months to come, because I have one objective: to win this House, to help win the Senate, and to make sure we end the chaos that’s coming out of this administration.”

Others took pains to separate their evaluation of Pritzker’s role in propelling Stratton to victory from any campaign he may run in 2028, suggesting they were willing to reset the relationship.

“You will still have to show your bona fides, and you still will have to make your case as to why the CBC and Black people should take you into consideration. So we have reset it,” Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.) said. “Good for him, for her, but that has no bearing on the 2028 race.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report. 

​Politics

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 has refused to commit to unconditional aidto Israel.

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.

CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to include Ford’s views on aid to Israel.

​Politics

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.”

​Politics

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.

​Politics

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.

​Politics

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.

​Politics