Hi! As a resident of the district she is running for here is a breakdown of what people who live in IL 9 have issue with her:
She has no tie to the state or Chicago. She can be essentially looked at as a "carpetbagger".
Kat was raised by a wealthy republican Palestinian American family in Texas. She then went to college in DC and became a progressive journalist (no issues here)
In April/June of 2024 she moved to Chicago because her journalist partner got a job as the CEO of the Onion. They moved to Streeterville, a downtown neighborhood of Chicago that is one of the wealthiest and whitest in the city. I've seen their 2 bed apartment was something like 4k a month but source was never determined.
Less than a year after moving to Chicago Kat announced a bid to represent IL-9 congressional district, one that she did not and had never lived in. (now we get to the problematic nature of this)
IL-9 is one of the most progressive and ethnically diverse districts in the state, it has a lot of transplant residents and has two very liberal colleges, Loyola University and Northwestern. IL-9 has been represented by Janice Schakowsky since 1999, Jan is 81 and should have been planing retirement but she has a record as un-apologetically part of the progressive caucus her entire career. Her greatest flaw, unsurprisingly as a Jew representing a district with high Jewish population (the town of Skokie is in IL-9) was turing a blind eye to Palestine.
Kat, decided to run against an elderly incumbent in a place she had no business representing because its where "she wanted to live"... which it's hard to imagine if ones partner is a CEO making likely at least 6 figures why one would not move to the area in the first place. As someone from Chicago the northern neighborhoods in IL-9 are MUCH MUCH MUCH cheaper and more affordable that the bougie rich people area Kat moved to...
NOW that we have background lets get into Kat's HALF TRUTHS from the campaign trail:
"Only one bus stop from IL 9" - Early campaign materials Kat stated how she didn't live far from the district and Illinois was extremely gerrymandered, and she was one bus stop away... this is true but to an extreme sense. The 147 is an express bus in Chicago that has one last stop in Streeterville before traveling 6.5 miles over about 20 minutes on LSD (the Chicago highway on the side of the city) to get to a stop in IL-9. AKA not an untruthful statement but one that is deeply misleading.
"I'm not rich I am a struggling Gen Z like all of you" - A few months back Kat posted a video on socials showing how she only had $5,000 in her bank account so she wasn't wealthy like her family in Texas and was choosing transparency. What that video failed to mention as already noted in this post she lives with a partner that is the CEO OF THE ONION. She doesn't have to worry about rent or utilities or any of these struggles, her partner is a CEO and in all her transparency she funnily seems to never mention Ben.
"I wasn't BORN here but I am from here now"... The way Kat responds to accusations of being a carpetbagger. In a recent video she emphasized that while not born in Chicago lots of young people move for opportunity. But what she is pushing is that this critique is a natalist one, not one based in concern that she is running for office in a place she has lived less than to years and a district she moved to in the last few months. She is twisting a valid concern to make herself look better.
I could also go into that her campaign merch is being actively sold by Raygun a liberal midwestern company in their store in Andersonville (a neighborhood in IL-9) with no offical endorsement from the company... but the company does have exclusive merchandising rights for the Onion (where have I mentioned them before?)
She is also getting blind support from most social media left platforms as she herself originates as a left media content creator.
Also a lot of her support and a good chunk of her donor money is coming from out of state.
Also x2 she has turned her entire platform into her protesting at the Broadview ICE facility, which is hard to say does not feel completely performative as again while having great progressive policies she has failed to show any tie to the community (becuase she does not have one) and instead making her mark as the woman the right hates.
Finally back in May 2025 Jan announced her retirement and there have been multiple local public officials (many, BIPOC and queer) with long seated community interest have started to campaign for the seat. An excellent example being Bushra Amiwala, a gen-z muslim woman who has lived in IL-9 her entire life, has been in local politics since her sophomore year of college and shares the majority of Kat's progressive general policies.
It's hard to advocate for a transplant with no local association when there is local ones who check the same boxes, unless you want to count how loud and media catching a social media influencer can be.
All said I would have been thrilled for Kat to run for a moderate democratic seat in Chicago. But its hard to not see her campaign as a power grab from a political animal that desperately wants to go back to living in DC where she has spend ~10 years.
It really feels like she was politically motivated to be in congress not to represent my home so she cherry picked a place she thought it would be the easiest for her to win.
Hope this helps! Her policies are great her intentions just seem slimy :)
