Juliana Stratton

Deep Dive

Stratton is Illinois' lieutenant governor and the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate. She has never held federal office, so none of the congressional votes this site tracks are hers.

Her clearest position came in August 2025, when the Senate voted on resolutions to block certain U.S. arms sales to the government of Israel. Her campaign told Jewish Insider she would not have supported them, and gave the reasoning in its own words rather than hers: that cutting off U.S. military aid to the government of Israel could risk standing in the way of a true ceasefire and a sustained peace. Her own statement to the same outlet was about hunger, not about the resolutions: "As a mother, it’s heartwrenching to see images of children forced to go without food. Israel and the United States need to take every possible step to end the humanitarian crisis and ensure aid is immediately and widely made available." That distinction is worth keeping, because the position is the campaign's and the words about hunger are hers.

Two months later, at a nine-candidate forum at Chicago State University, she called for a lasting, permanent ceasefire and for humanitarian aid to Gaza alongside the return of the hostages, where several rivals called the war a genocide and some proposed a full embargo. When a student asked the panel to promise not to take money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, she and one other candidate did not answer; the rest pledged not to. That is a question about campaign fundraising rather than about what the United States ships, and it is recorded here as one.

At a primary debate reported in February 2026 she was asked directly whether additional conditions should be placed on U.S. aid to the government of Israel, and did not answer directly. What she said instead was: "I can tell you that as our democratic ally in the Middle East, I believe that Israel has a right to safety and security, but at the very same time, I totally disagree with the way that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has responded to those attacks, and I believe that he should be removed from power, or he should step down, and there should be elections, as the people have been calling for." Asked at the same debate whether she would back a House resolution recognizing a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, she said the devastation and suffering were terrible and that everything possible must be done to get humanitarian aid in, without using the word; the rival who used it said afterwards that neither of her opponents would match her.

So the shape of her record is: against cutting off the weapons, critical of how they are being used, insistent that food and aid get through, and unwilling so far to say whether the aid should carry conditions.

The record

• Opposed the two Sen. Bernie Sanders-led Senate resolutions (voted on in late July/early August 2025) to block certain U.S. arms sales to Israel, while calling for Israel to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Stratton's campaign stated this position directly to Jewish Insider; her rival Robin Kelly said she would have voted for the resolutions.

• In the March 2026 primary's final stretch, the Pritzker-family-funded Illinois Future PAC backing Stratton attacked Krishnamoorthi over his vote for a House resolution condemning the June 2025 antisemitic attack on an Israeli hostage-awareness march in Boulder, Colorado, because the resolution also included language thanking ICE.

The money

Checked the five lobbying groups we track; no direct 2026 support found

In their words

Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs (JACPA), a suburban-Chicago pro-Israel PAC

Research log

The notes behind this card: what we looked at, what we found, and where each item came from.

U.S. military aid and weapons to Israel

• [Position, 2025-08-03] Her campaign told Jewish Insider that she would not have supported the Sanders-led resolutions to block certain U.S. arms sales to the government of Israel, while condemning the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Her own statement to the outlet, verified verbatim: "As a mother, it’s heartwrenching to see images of children forced to go without food. Israel and the United States need to take every possible step to end the humanitarian crisis and ensure aid is immediately and widely made available." And: "I continue to pray for a ceasefire that ends the suffering in Gaza, for the return of the hostages still held by Hamas to their families in Israel, and for lasting peace in the region." Her campaign added, in its own words rather than hers, that "[w]e should all be speaking with a clear voice that the Netanyahu administration must be doing more to get food and aid to the citizens of Gaza right away, but Juliana believes that cutting off U.S. military aid to Israel could risk standing in the way of the ultimate goals of a true ceasefire and sustained peace." The same report records the campaign saying she believes in the government of Israel's "right to defend itself as one of the United States’ closest allies and the only democracy in the Middle East". A second Jewish Insider report states the same position.

⚠ **Multi-candidate carrier.** Both reports cover three Illinois Senate candidates on the same page. Her words sit under her own attribution and the campaign's elaboration is marked as the campaign's; nothing here is taken from a neighbouring candidate's paragraph.

• [Position, 2026-02] At a primary debate the week before publication she was asked whether additional conditions should be applied to U.S. aid to the government of Israel and did not answer directly (Jewish Insider, verified verbatim): "I can tell you that as our democratic ally in the Middle East, I believe that Israel has a right to safety and security, but at the very same time, I totally disagree with the way that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has responded to those attacks, and I believe that he should be removed from power, or he should step down, and there should be elections, as the people have been calling for." The report gives no date for the debate itself, only that it was the week before, which is why no quote entry carries a day-precise date from it.

U.S. aid to Palestinians

• [Position, 2025-08-03, 2025-10-07 and 2026-02] She has repeatedly called for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza: in the August statement above, at the October forum below, and at the February debate. Nothing located in which she states a position on a specific U.S. funding channel, such as the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
• [Position, 2025-10-07] At a Citizen Action/Illinois forum at Chicago State University, before an audience of about three hundred, the Daily Northwestern reports that candidates were asked about Congress's role and that several called the war in Gaza a genocide while some proposed a full military and economic embargo. Of Stratton the report says she called for a "lasting, permanent ceasefire" and a solution prioritizing humanitarian aid to Gaza and the return of the hostages, and that she said, as a mother, she had remained "horrified by the devastation". Verified verbatim. She was also one of three candidates the report records agreeing on a two-state solution.

⚠ **Multi-candidate carrier.** Nine candidates spoke. Only sentences the report attributes to Stratton by name are used.

Characterization of the conflict

• [Position, 2026-02-19] Asked whether she would vote for a House resolution recognizing "the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza", she did not use the word. The Times of Israel quotes her, verified verbatim: "the devastation and suffering that we have seen is terrible" and "we must do everything we can" to get humanitarian aid to Gazans. That report is about a rival who did use the word, and it records that the rival said afterwards that neither Stratton nor the third candidate would match her. Jewish Insider's account of the same answer quotes a different span, "we must do everything we can to make sure that we can be on a real, sustained path to peace", and describes the war in her words as "devastating and it was horrific". The two reports quote different parts of one answer; neither is merged into the other.
• [Position, 2026-02] At the same debate she called for a two-state solution and for Palestinian leadership that could pursue one, per Jewish Insider.

Related rhetoric and lobbying

• [Position, 2025-10-07] Asked by a student to say yes or no on whether she would rule out money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, she did not answer, as the Daily Northwestern records; one rival also declined and the remaining candidates pledged not to take it. This is about campaign fundraising, not about weapons or money the United States sends, and it is not treated as a position on either.
• [Position, 2026-06] The Jewish Democratic Council of America names her among 135 endorsed candidates. The page is a list; it carries no statement from her.
• [Position, 2026] The Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs, a suburban Chicago political action committee that supports candidates on this axis, co-endorsed her in the primary. The record notes the same co-endorsement went to two of her rivals, which is why it is not treated as a distinguishing fact.
• [Position, 2026-03-04] Jewish Insider reported that a primary rival was attacked as overly supportive of Immigration and Customs Enforcement over his vote for a resolution condemning an attack on a hostage-awareness march in Boulder, Colorado, because the resolution also thanked that agency. The record's own summary attributes the attack to a political action committee funded by the governor's family; earlier reporting attributed it to her. The discrepancy is left visible rather than resolved, and it is not on the card.
• [Position, 2025-06-20] A subscriber-only Illinoize newsletter is cited for a remark of hers about the government of Israel being the only democracy in the region. The same phrase appears, attributed to her campaign, in the August Jewish Insider report above, which is the carrier used.

Safety and antisemitism (context)

• [Position, 2024-10-31] As lieutenant governor she joined the governor to launch a state programme against hate crimes, reported by Capitol News Illinois, created in response to rising antisemitic and anti-Muslim incidents.
• [Position, 2026-01-27] A campaign social-media post carries the line "Today and everyday, we commit to ending antisemitism and bigotry in all of its forms". It is a campaign account rather than a report, so it is named here and not quoted as a card claim.
• [Position, 2026-02-17] The Decalogue Society of Lawyers, an Illinois Jewish legal association, lists her among those honoured at its events. Recorded, not used.

Race and status context

• Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate in Illinois, per Ballotpedia's race page and the Associated Press. Campaign site read 2026-07-18.
• She did not serve in Congress during any of the ten tracked votes.