Stratton v. Tracy: Side by Side, Finally

I almost missed this. Saw it on Capitol Fax this evening. The main thing is that the candidates for Dick Durbin’s open U.S. Senate seat are set to debate on Tuesday.

Tonight, October 20, 2026, at 8 p.m. on WTTW, Chicago Tonight anchor Brandis Friedman moderates the only joint appearance of the general election between Democrat Juliana Stratton and Republican Don Tracy. It runs one hour from the WTTW studios on the North Side, with a studio audience. The forum airs live on WTTW and streams on the PBS app, wttw.com, Facebook, and YouTube. Rebroadcasts follow later in the week.

Credit: WTTW

Early voting in Illinois started September 24. This is the last scheduled chance for voters to see the two major-party nominees for Dick Durbin’s open seat answer the same questions in the same room. Tracy accepted invitations from multiple outlets and groups earlier in the cycle. Stratton’s campaign accepted this one.

I wrote about the race in September. Cook looks settled. The collars are the question. The post is here: Illinois Looks Settled.

American Center Party candidate Whitfield Harrington is on the ballot but was not invited. WTTW’s published standards require a candidate to show at least 15 percent in a post-primary public poll (plus other criteria) to appear.

The race is the first open Illinois Senate seat in decades. Stratton is the lieutenant governor and the Democratic nominee after a competitive primary. Tracy is a Springfield attorney and the former state party chair. Polling has shown a double-digit lead for the Democrat. The last Republican to win a U.S. Senate race in Illinois was Mark Kirk in 2010. The forum is the public record of what they chose to say when the clock ran out.

Watch on WTTW at 8 p.m. or stream it from their site. When it’s uploaded to YouTube it will be shared here, and like I did with the governor’s forum, offer my own take once I watch it.