Democratic Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and Republican Don Tracy squared off Tuesday in the only scheduled face-to-face meeting between the two major-party nominees vying for Illinois' open U.S. Senate seat, trading sharp accusations over immigration enforcement, tariffs and the ongoing Iran war. The hour-long forum, held at WTTW-Ch. 11's Northwest Side studios, offered Illinois voters their clearest side-by-side look yet at the two candidates just two weeks before the November 3 election.
The forum, held one day before this report, was covered by the Chicago Tribune, whose reporting underpins much of the exchange detailed here. Third-party candidate Whitfield Harrington Jr., who qualified for the general election ballot under the American Center Party banner, did not qualify to participate, according to the Tribune's account — a detail that echoes his earlier exclusion from the October 20 WTTW candidate forum noted by Ballotpedia. The seat has been open since Sen. Dick Durbin, who plans to retire when his term ends in January, announced last year he would not seek reelection after nearly 30 years in the chamber.
Immigration Enforcement Dominates the Clash
Much of the debate centered on federal immigration enforcement, an issue that has roiled the Chicago area since Operation Midway Blitz deployed there in fall 2025. Stratton said she believes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement cannot be reformed, describing it as Donald Trump's private police force and saying immigrant neighbors had been taken from streets by masked agents and put into unmarked vehicles, per the Tribune's reporting. She said enforcement actions had targeted tamale vendors, daycare workers and ordinary neighbors.
Tracy countered that Stratton's call to abolish ICE amounted to supporting open borders, and faulted her for joining efforts he said encouraged and obstructed immigration enforcement. He named Chicago and Minneapolis as sanctuary cities and acknowledged the federal government should have found a better way to enforce immigration law in those places. Still, the Tribune reports Tracy said people killed by ICE agents were probably the worst of the worst and were resisting arrest — a characterization that stands in direct tension with the case of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, and Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs ICU nurse and U.S. citizen, both killed by federal immigration agents in separate incidents in Minneapolis in January.
President Trump has said his administration was targeting the worst of the worst, according to the same report. Stratton pledged to check presidential power and said she wanted a real path to legal citizenship, proposing investment in more immigration judges and caseworkers to help people navigate the legal-status process.
Tariffs, Iran War, and the Minimum Wage Fight
The candidates also clashed over Trump's tariffs. Tracy defended the policy, saying its effects remain uncertain but that the president recognizes the United States has subsidized the world and faced unfair trade practices. Stratton, who said the Supreme Court ruled the tariffs illegal, argued they caused chaos and a trade war with allies, and said she would seek consumer refunds for tariff payments rather than let corporations keep the money while vowing to hold Trump accountable.
On Iran, Tracy defended the war Trump started, calling the resulting rise in gas prices a temporary spike and arguing that if the war was just, it would keep Iran from launching a third world war. Stratton called for an end to the conflict and pledged to vote against any additional federal funds to wage it.
Minimum wage policy also surfaced as a flashpoint. Stratton backs a $25-an-hour federal minimum wage and said small businesses would be included in discussions on any increase, while also saying she would seek higher taxes on millionaires to fund middle-class tax cuts. Tracy called a higher federal minimum wage a death sentence for small businesses and questioned whether it would drive up inflation — an argument playing out against the backdrop of Illinois' own minimum wage, which was phased in to $15 an hour. Stratton has also blamed corporate greed, which she says has been encouraged by the Trump administration, for social problems including the housing shortage and declining public trust in government.
The two also sparred over the farm bill: Tracy blamed Democrats for Congress's failure to approve a new five-year farm bill and defended SNAP work requirements as promoting dignity in work rather than welfare dependency, while Stratton blamed congressional Republicans for tying the farm bill to SNAP cuts.
Two Very Different Paths to the Ballot
Tracy, a 76-year-old Springfield attorney whose family owns the distributor Dot Foods, previously chaired the Illinois Republican Party and the Illinois Gaming Board. He accused Stratton of being a socialist and a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and said she would focus her first two years in office on impeaching Trump, per the Tribune's reporting. His campaign's October advertising relied on digital ads and highway billboards rather than a traditional general-election television campaign.
Stratton, 61, is a former mediator who served one term as a state representative from Chicago before Gov. JB Pritzker chose her as his running mate, making her the first Black person to serve as Illinois lieutenant governor. She won the March Democratic primary nomination running in the most progressive lane of the field, a result Punchbowl News attributed to a late surge that overcame front-runner U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi despite being heavily outspent, with financial backing from a super PAC supported by Pritzker. Separately, Pritzker selected former Deputy Governor Christian Mitchell as a running mate, according to Capitol News Illinois.
Stratton's general-election television ads launched this month, and she has drawn establishment firepower in the campaign's closing stretch. Former President Barack Obama is among those who have endorsed her.
History also looms over the race. No Republican has won a U.S. Senate election in Illinois since 2010, according to the 2026 Illinois Senate election page. With early voting underway and just two weeks left before Illinois voters decide who fills Durbin's seat, Tuesday's forum stood as the only direct confrontation between the two nominees before Election Day.
