Obama Endorses Juliana Stratton In Contentious Illinois House Race
By Mae Rice in News on Mar 7, 2016 7:07PM
As Illinois' March 15 primary approaches, the Illinois House race is heating up in a big way. Not only did it erupt in literal violence Sunday night; on Monday, President Barack Obama released two ads backing first-time democratic candidate Juliana Stratton in her 5th district race against incumbent Ken Dunkin, funded by Bruce Rauner and his allies.
In the following video, Obama explains in voiceover, “Juliana Stratton has spent her career serving our community, improving the juvenile justice system, and protecting public safety.”
Obama recorded this TV spot, as well as a radio one, last week, according to the Sun-Times.
A White House source told the Sun-Times that though Obama rarely gets involved in legislative races, he wanted to dispel any rumors that he supported Dunkin, and come out publicly in favor of Stratton, one of his allies in the fight against gun violence.
The 5th district also encompasses large swathes of Chicago’s South Side, where Obama worked for years.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff, sees the endorsement differently, though—less as an endorsement of Stratton specifically, and more as a condemnation of the state budget stalemate.
“Where we now are literally holding back poor kids who are accomplishing great things in education and not funding it correctly, so the fact that we now have kids leaving college because of their state government doesn’t have the right budget priorities, that’s what the endorsement is,” Emanuel said, according to CBS.
Whatever the reasoning behind it, Obama’s endorsement comes at a tense moment in the race between Stratton and Dunkin, as Dunkin was accused of voter fraud at a Sunday press conference held by Secretary of State Jesse White and Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd).
The two men accused Dunkin of buying early votes; Dowell claimed to have video footage showing Dunkin’s campaign trading votes for “crisp fifty dollar bills,” according to the Sun-Times.
The state’s attorney’s office is now investigating, the Sun-Times reports—though Dunkin’s campaign denies the allegations.
“Dowell’s baseless accusations are consistent with the desperate tactics previously used by the (House Speaker Michael) Madigan-led Stratton campaign,” a spokesperson for Dunkin’s campaign said in an email statement. “While Rep. Dunkin is working on issues such as abolishing red-light cameras, his opponent is still up to the same dirty tricks that have defined her campaign.”