The race to succeed five-term Democratic Illinois senator Dick Durbin, which exposed political fault lines from Illinois to Washington, D.C., all but ended in a win for Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton on Tuesday. Stratton emerged victorious in a closely contested Democratic primary over two sitting members of Congress, almost certainly ensuring her win in November in the reliably liberal state — and avoiding an embarrassing setback for the state’s governor, JB Pritzker, who had enthusiastically backed her candidacy.

“We did it tonight. We showed what’s possible when you listen to the people and give the people what they want,” Stratton said at her Election Night party, per the Chicago Sun-Times. “We are ready to take our democracy back into our own hands.”

A former member of the Illinois House of Representatives, Stratton ran a largely progressive campaign, embracing Medicare for All and the abolishment of ICE. She also positioned herself as a strong opponent of the Trump administration, running an ad featuring numerous people bluntly cursing President Donald Trump. “They said it, not me,” Stratton said in the viral clip.

As of Tuesday morning, with 92 percent of the votes tallied, Stratton led the field with 40.1 percent, followed by Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi with 33.2 percent and Representative Robin Kelly with 18.1 percent, per the New York Times. Krishnamoorthi conceded the race to Stratton last night, writing on social media, “I trust that she will continue the lasting legacy that Senator Durbin leaves behind.”

If Stratton wins in November, she will become only the sixth Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate in history and will join Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks, who are currently in the chamber. Notably, it was Illinois who elected Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman senator, in 1992. Stratton’s win also marked the first significant test of Governor Pritzker’s political muscle. Pritzker, seen as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, wholeheartedly backed his two-term running mate in the highly contested race. The governor himself ran unopposed with his new running mate, Deputy Governor Christian Mitchell, and will likely cruise to a third term in office, something that the state hasn’t seen in decades.

Pritzker is a Hyatt-hotel scion whose net worth is an estimated $3.9 billion, and he contributed at least $5 million to a super-PAC backing Stratton’s campaign. The funds gave Stratton a much-needed boost in the race against Krishnamoorthi, who led the cycle in fundraising and was aided by significant spending on negative ads against his opponents by Fairshake, a pro-cryptocurrency group.

But Pritzker’s involvement was not without its detractors. Yvette Clark, the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, accused the governor of attempting to “tip the scales” in the Senate race. The CBC was supporting Kelly, who is a member of the caucus, in the race. “A sitting governor shouldn’t be heavy-handing the race. Quite frankly, his behavior in this race won’t soon be forgotten by any of us,” Clark said.

Still, Clark soon congratulated Stratton on her win, calling it a “significant moment for Illinois and the nation” and saying that she looks forward to her win in November and welcoming her into the caucus.

The crypto lobby wasn’t the only group that saw its Illinois investments fall short on Tuesday. AIPAC invested heavily in four House races in the state but saw only two of its backed candidates win. Politico reports that AIPAC backed Cook County commissioner Donna Miller, who defeated former congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., and also supported former representative Melissa Bean in her victory. But Evanston mayor Daniel Biss secured the Democratic nomination over Kat Abughazaleh and Laura Fine in a tight race for the Ninth Congressional District, which featured $7 million of pro-Fine AIPAC spending. And state representative La Shawn Ford won in the Seventh Congressional District against Chicago treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who was backed by an AIPAC-affiliated group.

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