U.S. Senate candidates Juliana Stratton and Don Tracy used an hourlong debate on Tuesday night to show just how far apart their policies are on everything from the minimum wage to immigration and tariffs.
Stratton, the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat left vacant by Sen. Dick Durbin’s retirement, also repeatedly vowed to stand up to President Donald Trump’s policies, as Tracy, the Republican, used the platform to call her a socialist — three times.
Here are some key takeaways from the only Senate debate between Stratton and Tracy.
Stratton made headlines during the March primary for proposing a $25 federal minimum wage, far higher than her Democratic opponents thought was possible. On Tuesday, she stressed that a $7.25 federal minimum wage isn’t enough for anyone to take care of themselves or their family. She called $25 an hour a “livable wage, not just the bare minimum, where people can have a little more money in their pockets.” Stratton also said she supports a millionaire’s tax.
Asked by WTTW moderator Brandis Friedman how that hike would be paid for, Stratton said small businesses would be at the table for any discussions about raising the minimum wage, just as Illinois did when Gov. JB Pritzker and Stratton raised Illinois’ minimum wage from $8.25 to $15 an hour.
“We worked with the business community, and we raised it incrementally over four years,” Stratton said.
Tracy, former chair of the Illinois Republican Party, called a $25 minimum wage “a death sentence for small businesses everywhere.”
“What will that do to the cost of living? What will that do to the cost of a cheeseburger, a Big Mac,” Tracy said. “...Every solution they have is spending more money and raising the cost of living.”
The two candidates were asked how the Senate should respond to Trump’s tariffs, with Tracy saying, “the jury’s still out on tariffs.”
“I like the fact that the president recognizes that we’ve been subsidizing the world, and we’ve been taken advantage of by the world with unfair trade practices out there, and so he’s trying to use, I think, tariffs as a tool, not an objective, but as a tool to reset world trade policy and make it a more level playing field.”
Stratton shot back at Tracy’s response, reminding him that the U.S. Supreme Court in February ruled that sweeping tariffs Trump imposed in a series of executive orders were illegal.
“That is not the jury still being out. And with these illegal tariffs, refunds are owed. But guess who’s getting them? Is it you, the people of Illinois? No," Stratton said. "These refunds are going to big corporations like Amazon. That’s who’s getting the refund.”
Stratton said, if elected, she’d fight to make sure refunds go to the people and not corporations.
“It has caused chaos. It has caused a trade war with our allies, and that is not the kind of leadership we need,” Stratton said.
Stratton supports abolishing ICE and accused Tracy of supporting Operation Midway Blitz. She said she also wants to see a “real path to legal citizenship, including for Dreamers.”
Tracy called Operation Midway Blitz “ugly and chaotic,” but he compared the immigration enforcement in the Chicago area to that in Memphis, where he said things had “gone pretty well” because local authorities cooperated with federal immigration agents.
He blamed the violence on “massive resistance by the local authorities,” and he accused Americans of caring more about the deaths of four Americans at the hands of federal agents than to police shot in the line of duty.
“Certainly the immigration advocates don’t care about the thin blue line,” Tracy said.
Stratton said Trump didn’t go after the “worst of the worst.”
“Donald Trump went after tamale vendors and daycare workers, our neighbors,” Stratton said. “And so I'm always going to stand up and speak out when we are seeing people getting killed in the streets by a federal agency.”
Tracy repeatedly said that Stratton would “do everything she can to impeach” Trump in her first two years in office. Stratton has said she’d support impeaching Trump, but she has also pointed out the difficulty in doing so because it would take a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Tracy is echoing a GOP talking point going into the general election — as Republican candidates try to paint a picture of Democrats hell-bent on impeaching Trump instead of focusing on other issues.
“I’m starting to wonder if my opponent is running against me or against the president,” Tracy said in response to a question about conservation efforts.
Stratton shot back at Tracy, saying that he’d “welcome” an endorsement from Trump.
“So when I talk about Donald Trump, that’s someone whose endorsement you’re looking for,” Stratton said.
Tracy said he “never said that.”
“If the president of the United States would want to endorse me as a candidate, I would accept that,” Tracy said.
The candidates both disclosed that they had lost family members to Alzheimer’s. Stratton has frequently mentioned that she was a caretaker for her mother, Velma, whom she lost in 2016. Stratton on Tuesday said her mother’s health battle inspired her to run for the Illinois House in 2016, to help fight for healthcare for seniors amid massive cuts during the state’s budget impasse.
Tracy said he admired Stratton for caring for her mother, and said his father also died of Alzheimer’s. He said he also lost his godfather and a brother to the disease as well.
“This is a horrible disease and we need to do something about it,” Tracy said.
