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March 17, 2026 14:57-15:01 - CSPAN
03:59
Washington Journal Robert McCoppin

Robert McCoppin reports on Illinois primary elections, highlighting the Senate race where retiring Dick Durbin leaves a field contested by leading candidates Raja Krishna Murthy and Juliana Stratton, whose official Jesse Jackson endorsement was later clarified as unofficial. The segment also covers House District 8, noting former Congresswoman Melissa Bean's return after losing to Joe Walsh, while concluding with lawmakers preparing an electronic vote on House Resolution 115, illustrating the intense legislative activity shaping state governance. [Automatically generated summary]

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo Source
Participants
Appearances
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mimi geerges
cspan 00:43
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addison mcdowell
rep/r 00:10
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Speaker Time Text
Senate Race Controversy Explained 00:03:59
unidentified
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mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼
We're going to just pause on the calls for a few minutes because it is a big day in Illinois.
There's a primary going on, and so we're going to talk to Chicago Tribune reporter Robert McCoppin.
Robert, welcome.
Can you hear me?
unidentified
Yes, thanks for having me.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼
All right, so it's Senate, House, and Governor's Races primaries going on today.
Let's start with the Senate.
Tell us what's going on.
unidentified
Well, Dick Durbin is retiring, so there's a rare opening in the Senate seat in Illinois.
And so we have three primary candidates, Raja Krishna Murthy and Juliana, who is a congressman here, and Juliana Stratton, who's a deputy lieutenant governor, and Robin Kelly, congressperson.
So there's been a lot of back and forth between those candidates.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼
What are polls telling you about who could win it?
unidentified
Well, Krishna Murthy and Stratton seem to be leading the polls, but there's just been a recent mini controversy over an endorsement by the late Jesse Jackson because Juliana Stratton had claimed the endorsement of Jesse Jackson, who recently died, of course.
But then the family came out and said, no, we're not endorsing anybody.
That was just a draft endorsement that was never supposed to go out.
So that's been kind of a late-breaking development.
But all the candidates have been flooding the TV with commercials on their own behalf.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼
And what about Representative Robin Kelly also in that race?
Could she be seen as a disruptor?
Where do you see that going?
unidentified
Yeah, she could be, certainly.
I mean, she's promising to fight like hell for voters.
And she's a longtime congressperson from Chicago and the South suburbs.
So she has a good base.
So, yeah, there's no telling which way that could go.
mimi geerges ▲ ● ▼
So with Representative Krishna McMurthy vying for a spot in the Senate, his seat is up for grabs, too.
What can you tell us about the candidates running for the 8th District?
unidentified
Right.
So Melissa Bean is back.
She was a member of Congress for three terms back in the 2000s.
She had defeated a longtime Republican incumbent Phil Crane, if you remember him.
And she held office for three terms before she was upset by Joe Wall.
You can watch this program in its entirety if you go to our website, c-span.org.
We're going to leave this here and take you live now to the U.S. House where lawmakers are preparing to vote.
addison mcdowell ▲ ● ▼
NS 3971, ordering the previous question on House Resolution 115 and adoption of House Resolution 115 if ordered.
The first electronic vote will be conducted.
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