Democratic Senate frontrunners stick to talking points, split on Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The three front runners for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat mostly kept to their prior scripts at a debate broadcast by WGN Thursday night, splitting the most on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The debate, hosted by Nexstar and moderated by WGN political editor Tahman Bradley and anchor Micah Materre, saw Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and U.S. Reps. Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi as the only candidates in a field of 10 who met the network’s requirements to appear.
The debate opened with Stratton and Krishnamoorthi once again trading barbs over campaign funds.
Stratton took shots at Krishnamoorthi for taking campaign contributions from supporters of President Donald Trump, as well as an executive at a company contracted by ICE — a month after Stratton went on the offensive during an hourlong debate hosted by the Chicago Sun-Times, WBEZ and UChicago’s Institute of Politics and International House
Krishnamoorthi shot back at Stratton for being part of the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, which had previously taken money from CoreCivic, a private prison and ICE contractor, in 2024. He added that he had since donated the money he received to three immigrant groups, which he did not name. The association said it donated the funds to the National Immigrant Law Center and vowed to no longer accept money from CoreCivic.
“Those are his values, he’s not going to be one to stand up to the people,” Stratton said.
Krishnamoorthi shot back: "I’m an immigrant, I don't need a lecture on standing up to ICE."
Krishnamoorthi once again called to specifically abolish “Trump’s ICE" as opposed to Stratton's wider call to abolish ICE. Kelly said U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem must be removed and federal agents “have to have rules like regular police officers do.”
The candidates seemed to break the most new ground and widen the gap between them in discussing the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, which sparked mass protests in the Chicago area as people called for an end to Israeli raids that killed nearly 70,000 Palestinians and razed large parts of Gaza. The war started Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas led an attack that took 251 hostages and killed nearly 1,200 Israelis.
Stratton said she wanted to “see the suffering end” and wants Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down, but added that she believes Israel has a right to “safety and security.” When the moderators asked her a second time if what Israel is doing is genocide, she stumbled.
Krishnamoorthi said he wanted to see existing restrictions on foreign military funding enacted across the board as a means of reaching a two-state solution.
Kelly noted she is a co-sponsor of the Block the Bombs Act, which would block the president from selling or exporting offensive weapons systems to Israel, and also called for Netanyahu to step down. She was the only candidate who called Israel's actions genocide.
“There were a lot of things that happened before Oct. 7, also,” Kelly said. “It may not have started that way, but genocide was the result.”
The candidates' remarks were posted online after the debate and can be found at WGNTV.com.
Also running for the Democratic nomination are Steve Botsford Jr., Sean Brown, Awisi A. Bustos, Jonathan Dean, Bryan Maxwell, Kevin Ryan and Christopher Swann. Some of the lesser known candidates made their voices heard earlier this month.
Early voting has already kicked off in the race which concludes March 17. The Chicago Board of Elections has received 10,163 ballots, which appears to so far be a higher turn out than the number of ballots that had been received in the first 26 days of early voting during the 2022 and 2018 primaries.
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.