Jesse Jackson posthumously spurs ‘commotion’ in key Senate race

Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton on Saturday touted a Senate endorsement from the late Rev. Jesse Jackson that she said she had just been notified she received, days before Illinois Democrats choose their nominee to succeed retiring Sen. Dick Durbin.

But instead, the announcement has turned into a back-and-forth saga. Jackson’s group, Rainbow PUSH, and his son Yusef later said that the endorsement, weeks after Jackson’s death, was not meant to be public and didn’t have final approval. He attributed the mix-up to a staff member.

That was after another son, Rep. Jonathan Jackson, raised eyebrows when he doubted the endorsement in comments to Politico, saying: “He wouldn’t do that. … This smells of desperation.”

Reached by NBC News on Monday evening, Rep. Jackson backed off those remarks, saying, “I may have overstated that,” and adding that he “wished her well.”

“I wish them all well,” Jackson said, noting that he had been trying to stay out of the Senate race, which includes two of his House colleagues, Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Robin Kelly. “I worked with Raja and Robin, and it’s a highly contested race.”

Kelly said Monday in an interview with NBC Chicago that Jackson’s widow, Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson, called her to apologize after the release of the draft ballot.

Landing a Jesse Jackson endorsement had long come with the potential to boost candidates in Chicago in the intense fight for the city’s coveted Black vote. Stratton is in a hard-fought contest with Krishnamoorthi and Kelly, who, like Stratton, is Black and has tried to court the voting bloc.

In a statement Monday evening, Yusef Jackson noted the controversy around his late father’s views on the Senate race and said he wished the discourse would move back to real issues before voters.

“Over the past 48 hours, there has been a lot of commotion about who my father, Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. endorsed before his passing — just over a month ago,” Yusef Jackson wrote in a statement sent out from his late father’s X account. “Out of respect for my father, we decided not to publicly release his intended selections given the process had not been finalized.

“However, due to an internal miscommunication, a draft sample ballot was released by a staff person who did not have authorization,” the statement continued. “This unintentional error has set off unforeseen controversy. One that has unfortunately revolved around one candidate in particular.”

Yusef Jackson then said he wanted to be “very clear.”

“We did not withdraw or retract our endorsement of any one candidate,” he wrote. “Instead, we made clear that the document shared this weekend was not final.” He added that the organization would be neither “confirming nor issuing political endorsements in this cycle.”

In a statement, Stratton said organizers with Rainbow PUSH Coalition informed her of the endorsement while she spoke at the organization for a Women’s History Month event.

“Organizers shared the sample election ballot that was already being distributed and encouraged her to share the news,” the campaign said in a statement.

The sample ballot, reviewed by NBC News, lists dozens of endorsed candidates in statewide and local races.

Before the Jackson firestorm, Stratton had stirred the pot in the Senate race by airing a radio ad featuring an old endorsement from Barack Obama. Obama had endorsed Stratton years earlier in her race as a state lawmaker.

“It is a measure of @Barack Obama’s standing in his home state of Illinois that a late ad on behalf of Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton implies his endorsement in the red-hot, three-way race for the U.S. Senate. But he’s not endorsed ANY of the candidates,” David Axelrod, onetime senior strategist for Obama, wrote on social media.