Another contestant joined the still-emerging field of Democrats vying to succeed U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin Wednesday as five-term northwest suburban U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi launched his bid, pitching himself as a “radical common sense progressive” to take on President Donald Trump.
“A president, ignoring the Constitution, out for revenge, acting like a dictator, claiming he’s a king, surrounded by billionaire backers and MAGA extremists, threatening our rights, rigging the rules to line their pockets,” the 51-year-old Krishnamoorthi of Schaumburg says in his near 2½-minute video announcement released Wednesday. “Wrecking the economy, they profit and working people pay. It’s insanity. People want to know, at this moment in this time, where is the power to fight back?”
“I’ve spent my career standing up to bullies, whether they’ve gone after our kids, our families or our country,” he continues in the video. “So if you’re ready to turn anger into action and make America work for working people, join our campaign.”
Krishnamoorthi’s formal announcement had been expected and it comes two weeks after the 80-year-old Durbin announced he would not seek a sixth term. It also follows announcements by Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton and U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson that they would enter the March 17 Democratic primary.
With his bid, Krishnamoorthi injects into the race a mix of moderate policy positions such as supporting small business initiatives — in line with the ideology of many voters in his suburban district — along with progressivism as one of 19 vice chairs of the Congressional Equality Caucus, a group that promotes equality for all regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
“I see myself as kind of a radical common sense progressive,” the one-time small business security firm owner said in an interview before his announcement.
“I’m a racial, religious, ethnic minority immigrant with 29 letters in my name. I identify with people who are strivers or dreamers, as single moms, the most vulnerable, LGBTQ people who have been bullied,” Krishnamoorthi said. “I identify myself with the small businesses who constantly feel like the playing field is unlevel for them relative to big corporations, because I myself felt that way relative to my competitors.”
Krishnamoorthi also will be injecting into the race the nearly $19.5 million he has in his federal campaign fund — an amount that is tops among the state’s delegation in Washington — as he notably takes on Stratton, who has the backing of billionaire two-time running mate, Gov. JB Pritzker.
Far from a household name to statewide voters, ”Just call me Raja” has long been Krishnamoorthi’s political campaign theme and he is maintaining it for the Senate run.
But in his biographical announcement, he seeks to connect himself to voters with a powerful and popular Illinois Democrat by pointing to his past political work for Barack Obama before he was elected president. Obama “showed that Illinois will give you a shot even if you have a funny name, and, inspired by Barack’s example, I was elected to Congress,” he says in the video.
In a race to replace a downstate U.S. senator, the congressman from Schaumburg also sought to differentiate himself from his Chicago-area rivals by pointing out that while his family moved from New Delhi, India, when he was 3-months-old, he was raised in Peoria and is “a son of Peoria public schools.”
A graduate of Princeton University and the Harvard School of Law, Krishnamoorthi’s candidacy brings his federal political career full circle.
In his first bid for Congress in 2012, he lost the Democratic nomination to Tammy Duckworth. Elected to the House four years later after Duckworth went to the Senate, Krishnamoorthi now seeks to become the junior partner to the future Illinois senior senator. Duckworth is backing Stratton’s bid.
But Krishnamoorthi has been a creature of Illinois politics. He was a volunteer for Obama’s failed 2000 primary challenge to former U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush and became policy director for Obama’s successful 2004 U.S. Senate run.
Krishnamoorthi then assisted in the launch of an anti-corruption unit in the Illinois attorney general’s office under Lisa Madigan before serving as a deputy state treasurer under now-Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, where Kelly served as chief of staff. In his only previous statewide run, in 2010, he narrowly lost a primary bid for state comptroller before running for Congress two years later.
Before entering Congress, Krishnamoorthi ran a small business specializing in security research and development. That background led to his work in Congress to reauthorize and modernize federal programs to provide vocational and technical education opportunities.
He also helped lead an investigation into youth vaping and e-cigarettes that prompted stronger federal regulation of the products and forced Juul to reach a $439 million settlement with dozens of states over allegations the company targeted young people in its advertising.
A member of the House Intelligence Committee and the House Oversight Committee, Krishnamoorthi has long pursued to toughen limits on lead in baby foods and was a longtime critic of Purdue Pharma over its role in peddling Oxycontin. The firm went bankrupt in 2021, but its owners agreed to pay billions of dollars worth of opioid-abuse claims.
In 2024, Krishnamoorthi helped spearhead controversial legislation to force the Chinese internet company ByteDance to sell its popular social media app TikTok. The legislation became law but Trump has so far delayed enforcing it.
In recent days, Krishnamoorthi has warned Irish low-cost airline Ryanair to not buy Chinese-made aircrafts. The move came amid concerns over intellectual property theft after the airline’s CEO said it was an alternative to canceling orders for Boeing 737 jets with an increased price tag due to Trump’s imposition of tariffs. Krishnamoorthi is the top Democrat on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
“Now we have, perhaps, the biggest bully of them all, Donald Trump, and I have a track record of standing up to bullies and I can stand up to him as well,” he said in his pre-announcement interview.
Assailing the chaos of Trump’s early second term and resulting economic uncertainty, Krishnamoorthi said government should be “an indispensable partner in helping people realize their economic dreams and their potential.”
“I believe that with every fiber of my body that right now, whether you’re working poor, whether you’re middle class, whether you’re growing a business, we want everyone to succeed in this country and the government needs to be there to help however it can,” he said in the interview.
Krishnamoorthi on Friday is scheduled to hold the first official events of his campaign with stops in Peoria, Chicago and Schaumburg.
