Democrats’ blue tsunami on election night ushered in a wave of “firsts” across the nation, from the first Black woman elected governor, Georgia’s Keisha Lance Bottoms, to the first Muslim person elected to the U.S. Senate, Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed.

It also washed over Illinois, which will become the first state to send two women of color to the U.S. Senate when outgoing Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton is sworn in alongside incumbent Sen. Tammy Duckworth in January.

Stratton’s ascent allowed for another new trail to be blazed in her office, which will be filled by Christian Mitchell, the first Black man elected as Illinois’ lieutenant governor.

“I feel incredibly honored by it,” Mitchell told the Sun-Times. “I realize whose shoulders I stand on. I realize we lost Jesse Jackson this year, who talked about keeping hope alive and did so much work for the vote, and John Lewis, and so many people.”

But first on the 40-year-old former legislator’s mind, while addressing a packed Navy Pier ballroom after declaring victory alongside Gov. JB Pritzker, were his mother, Deb Gist; his late grandmother, Lilly Mae Gist; and his late grandfather and “hero,” James Gist, who served as a U.S. Army sergeant.

“At the time he went out to fight for this country in Korea, we did not have the Civil Rights Act, and he did not have his rights of the franchise guaranteed. So on a personal level, I feel that weight,” Mitchell said the day after making history.

“Juliana blazed a trail here as the first Black woman to be lieutenant governor. The fact that we have so many of these firsts in 2026 shows that we still have a ways to go, so I’m very grateful,” he said. “But we have so much more work to do, and ultimately, regardless of your color, your creed, where you live, I want to be a lieutenant governor for everyone in the way that JB has been a governor for everybody.”

Breaking new ground in an office with no defined responsibilities beyond being a heartbeat away from becoming governor, Mitchell’s position as lieutenant governor-elect takes on enhanced significance as Pritzker considers running for president.

Mitchell’s job description will shift considerably if the third-term governor hits the 2028 campaign trail — and he’ll make even more history if Pritzker actually wins the White House.

Mitchell says that hasn’t affected the way he approaches the office, and the prospect of becoming the state’s first Black governor is not what drew him back to public service after a two-year stint as vice president of civic engagement at the University of Chicago.

“I’ve always said and always been taught by my mentors, including JB, that if you do the job that you have in front of you, the future takes care of itself,” Mitchell said, hardly downplaying Pritzker’s potential national ambition.

“It’s good that people look at that and say, ‘Hey, with everything broken in Washington, we want that kind of leadership to go national.’ That’s great,” Mitchell said. “It’s also why it’s great that he won a third term. So for me, as his governing partner and somebody who every day approaches his job with a high level of seriousness and a focus on the kind of people who raised me — single moms, union workers, farmers — I’m going to do that, no matter what’s potentially happening.

“And ultimately it’s why I’m so glad to be running with somebody who said, ‘Hey, I want to do this again, I want to run for a third term.’ I want to keep the work going,” said Mitchell, who has been one of Pritzker’s closest confidants since the governor was first elected in 2018.

The Bronzeville resident became the youngest state representative at the time he was elected from the 26th District in 2012 at age 26, serving three terms before being named a deputy governor in Pritzker’s administration in 2019.

Mitchell shepherded Pritzker’s signature $45 billion capital infrastructure program through the General Assembly and ran point on other key legislation, including landmark climate legislation aiming to wean Illinois off fossil fuels.

Mitchell, a former adviser to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, also helped manage the rollout of the state’s recreational cannabis industry, while leading frenzied procurement efforts for badly needed supplies in the darkest early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Illinois Air National Guard first lieutenant by part-time trade and an amateur boxer by hobby, Mitchell says he’s excited to get back to the Capitol.

“Getting out on the trail was really the most invigorating for me,” he said. “The challenges are common, but so are the hopes, so is the decency. I’m a Black man from the South Side of Chicago, and I’m going to places where often people don’t look like me, and I still felt incredibly welcome.

“In the state, if you get it right and you can convince colleagues to do it, you can move pretty quickly… You can do things pretty quickly if you pull the right people together.”