Juliana Stratton, Illinois’s lieutenant governor, won the open Senate seat of retiring Sen. Dick Durbin, keeping it in Democratic hands.
Juliana Stratton built her career on settling fights before she ever ran for office. A lawyer from Chicago’s South Side, she founded a mediation firm in 1997 and spent years as an arbitrator and administrative law judge.
Stratton, 61, later ran the Cook County Justice Advisory Council, which coordinates criminal justice reform, and directed the Center for Public Safety and Justice at the University of Illinois Chicago. She was elected to the Illinois House in 2016.
In 2019 she became Illinois’s 48th lieutenant governor, the first African American to hold the job, on the ticket with Gov. JB Pritzker. There she led the state’s Justice, Equity and Opportunity Initiative, an effort to reform the criminal justice system.
Now she moves to the Senate seat Dick Durbin held for nearly three decades before retiring. Illinois has sent only Democrats to the Senate for years, and Stratton’s win was expected — but the seat was open, and open seats are never free.
Watch how her background in criminal justice shapes her first bills in Washington.
Fast facts
- Age: 61
- Party: Democratic
- Office: U.S. Senator
- State: Illinois
- Previous job: Lieutenant Governor of Illinois
- Called by AP: Nov. 3, 2026
Part of the Zark News Election 2026 winners profile series. Winners are listed as called by the Associated Press.
