#il-09

Kevin Robillard at HuffPost:

Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss won a Democratic primary to represent parts of Chicago and its suburbs, beating back attacks from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in a closely watched race. Biss emerged from a crowded field, with his stiffest competition coming from researcher Kat Abughazaleh and state Sen. Laura Fine, AIPAC’s preferred candidate. The pro-Israel lobbying group spent more than $7.5 million in the race, attacking Biss and Abughazaleh while boosting Fine.

In IL-09, while I would rather have Kat Abughazaleh winning here, Evanston Mayor and 2018 Gubernatorial candidate Daniel Biss is a decent option to fill the grand shoes left by retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D).

Parker Molloy at The Present Age:

Kat Abughazaleh lost her race for Congress last night. She came in second in a 16-person Democratic primary for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, trailing Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss by roughly 4,000 votes. She’s 26. She’d never run for anything before. She moved to the district a year ago. And she came closer to winning than anyone expected when she announced. I need to get something out of the way up front: Kat is my friend. We both worked at Media Matters. I wrote about her campaign once before, back in April 2025, shortly after she announced. I wanted her to win. I posted about supporting her on social media. But I made a deliberate decision early on to keep a wall up between that and what I published here at TPA. I didn’t want to spend the campaign writing cheerleader pieces about my friend’s congressional run. So I waited to see how things played out before weighing in again. Things have now played out. I also want to be honest about what this loss was and what it wasn’t. Biss is a good candidate. He’s progressive. He’s the well-liked, twice-elected mayor of Evanston, a former state senator who I personally voted for over JB Pritzker in the 2018 gubernatorial primary. He has solid positions on LGBTQ issues, on immigration, on economic policy. He had Jan Schakowsky’s endorsement, Elizabeth Warren’s endorsement, the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Once Biss entered the race, I remember thinking that this was going to be a real challenge for Kat. It was. He’ll be a fine member of Congress, a fitting successor to Schakowsky.

If you’re a pundit looking to spin this as evidence that Kat was too far left, or that her positions on some specific issue doomed her, I’d encourage you to consider that the urge to say those things probably has more to do with your own politics than with what actually happened in this race. She lost to a progressive with deep local roots and years of institutional support. That’s a different story than the one some people are eager to tell. My friend Katelyn Burns wrote a great piece today on how Kat ran her campaign: the Twitch fundraising, the mutual aid, the AIPAC spending, the indictment. I’d recommend reading it. I want to write about something slightly different. I want to write about what Kat’s campaign meant, and why Democrats across the country should be paying attention to it right now.

Something to vote for

That April 2025 piece I mentioned was about a CNN interview where host Jim Sciutto tried to get Kat to agree that support for trans people had cost Democrats the 2024 election. She didn’t take the bait. “Absolutely not,” she said. “Democrats deciding that trans people are the reason they lost the election in 2024 — it’s ridiculous. It’s offensive.” And then she said the thing that stuck with me for the entire year that followed: “A far bigger issue is that we aren’t giving people something to vote for.” I think about that line a lot. Democrats have spent the last several years agonizing over which voters they’re losing and which positions they should abandon to win them back. Should they distance themselves from trans people? From Palestinians? The premise of this conversation is that the party’s problem is ideological, that it stands for too much, and the fix is to stand for less. Kat’s campaign was a rejection of that premise. She spent a year trying to build the thing she told CNN was missing: a campaign that actually gave people something to vote for. Her slogan was “What if we didn’t suck?” and it’s funny, but it’s also a real question that most Democratic campaigns don’t bother trying to answer.

Her platform tied everything together under what she called “basic existence”: housing, healthcare, climate, LGBTQ rights, economic justice, all treated as the same fight. “I’m so sick of treating all these issues like they’re separate,” she told The Advocate in January. “Every person deserves to afford housing, groceries, and health care, with money left over. We’re the richest country on Earth — there’s no reason we can’t.” Every person. That’s the part I want to sit with for a second. Trans people, yes. But also Trump voters. Republicans. People of every race and religion and background. The vision Kat was offering wasn’t about carving the electorate into pieces and deciding which ones to fight for. It was the radical (apparently) idea that a better world is possible for everyone, and that a political party should be in the business of trying to build one.

[...]

The thing she didn’t do

I wrote in that April 2025 piece about Kat’s refusal to accept the premise that trans people cost Democrats the election. What I didn’t know then was whether she’d hold that line for an entire campaign, under real pressure, with real money being spent against her. She did. That matters to me personally. I’m trans. I’ve watched a lot of politicians over the years decide, after a bad election, that my rights are an acceptable bargaining chip. They don’t usually say it that bluntly. They say “messaging” or “prioritization” or “meeting voters where they are.” The result is the same: they back away, and people like me get the message. Kat told The Advocate that attacks on queer and trans people follow a pattern: “This is what every authoritarian regime does. They go after visible minorities, queer folks, and Jews.” She said it in January, months into the campaign, when softening the position might have bought her a few points in the suburbs. She didn’t soften it. She didn’t treat it as a liability to be managed. She treated it as part of the same fight as everything else on her platform, because it is.

A well-written piece by Parker Molloy on her fellow former Media Matters For America colleague Kat Abughazaleh’s run for IL-09 and close 2nd place finish.

Abughazaleh, even though she came within a few percentage points of defeating Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and beat out several prominent names such as Laura Fine and Mike Simmons for runner-up spot, brought dynamism to the race and bringing mutual aid to the fore. The Democratic Party needs more people like her.

If you predicted that Abughazaleh would finish second and come within a few percentage points of defeating a giant in Biss a year ago, it would’ve been dismissed as far-fetched fantasy.

See Also:

Jeff Singer at The Downballot:

The 2026 primary season continues Tuesday as voters in Illinois pick candidates for state and federal offices, including in several Democratic contests that have drawn attention far outside the Land of Lincoln. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin announced last April that he would not seek a sixth term representing this reliably blue state, leading to an expensive and unpredictable three-way battle between Rep. Robin Kelly, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, and Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. The decisions by Kelly and Krishnamoorthi to run statewide in turn set off packed primaries for the House districts they are giving up. There are similarly busy races underway to replace Democratic Reps. Danny Davis and Jan Schakowsky, who are both retiring after close to three decades in Congress. The primaries for these four Democratic-friendly districts, all of which are located in or around Chicago, have been defined by massive outlays from third-party interests. Organizations affiliated with the hawkish pro-Israel group AIPAC, the AI industry, and the crypto sector have been responsible for most of the over $30 million in outside spending that’s been deployed across these four House races. These well-heeled groups aren’t just interested in using their resources to promote their favored candidates and undermine contenders they’re hoping to keep out of Congress. Some candidates who have struggled to gain support have been the involuntary beneficiaries of positive ads that are in fact aimed at diverting votes away from a stronger rival. Many of these PACs have also deployed misleading ads attacking vocal progressives as insufficiently liberal while simultaneously portraying centrists as progressive warriors. Semafor’s Dave Weigel dubbed this approach “bizarro-world branding.”

“What hasn’t changed is that these PACs run on what their strategists believe will play with Democratic primary voters, not what their funders want to achieve,” he wrote. “As a result, watching TV in Chicago makes you feel like a cordyceps fungus has taken over the Democratic Party — imitating its messaging to destroy it, just as the parasite does in the wild.” Below, you’ll find our guide to these five races. We’re also shining a spotlight on the Democratic primary for president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, where four-term incumbent Toni Preckwinkle is fighting to remain the leader of America’s second-most populous county.

Today, we have several big primaries in Illinois. The Downballot (of which I am a paid subscriber of) has excellent coverage of the big-ticket races.

Tessa Stuart at Rolling Stone:

Illinois 9th District has only been represented by two people since 1965, and there hasn’t been a competitive primary since the race Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, the district’s current representative, won in November 1998. “I wouldn’t be born for another four months,” deadpans Kat Abughazaleh, the TikTok-famous political commentator now running to represent the district.  Abughazaleh is transparent about the fact that she is not what anyone thinks of as shoe-in for Congress: a 26-year-old narcoleptic freelance social media creator who doesn’t live in the district and has only lived in the state for less than a year, challenging a Democratic Party leader who has represented this part of Illinois for more than a quarter of a century.  That’s kind of the point: She is a normal person — with a rental lease she can’t break before it’s up, financial pressure bearing down on her, and prescription medication that she needs to function properly and that has been challenging to obtain since Elon Musk went after her employer, and she and many of her colleagues were laid off.  And when she looks to Congress, not only does she not see enough people who are concerned with the practical day-to-day challenges she and so many of the people she knows are struggling with — the costs of housing, health care, groceries, transportation — she also doesn’t see anyone confronting with any level of seriousness the peril of our current moment, two months into Donald Trump’s second term.  “We are in an emergency,” Abughazaleh says. “Right now, the answer to authoritarianism isn’t to be quiet. It’s not matching pink outfits at a state address. It’s not throwing trans people under the bus. It’s not refusing to look at the party at all and see where it could be better. The answer is to very publicly, very loudly, very boldly, stand up. The only way to fight fascism, and this has been proven over and over and over again, is loudly, proudly, and every single day.”

Abughazaleh may be young, but she is a wildly successful, incisive communicator who is stepping up at a time when it is clear that the party is in desperate need of new messengers. And she is popular on the social media platforms where sitting Democrats’ posts are continually flopping, ridiculed for their tone deafness.  The day after the 2024 presidential election, Abughazaleh thought she would wake up with an irrepressible urge to flee the country. Instead, she says, it was the opposite: “I woke up and thought, ‘You’re gonna have to drag me out by my dead body’ … I just got really angry, and I thought about running at that moment, but I was like, ‘No, I’m sure Democrats will do something,’ and then they haven’t — and it’s just been not only disappointing, but scary to watch.” Schakowsky, currently representing the district, “has had a pretty great track record on her voting,” Abughazaleh admits. But she is also 80 years old, and hasn’t had a competitive primary in decades. “She’s been a good congresswoman, but I want to be better.”

[...] Abughazaleh was born in Texas and raised as a Republican — really Republican. Her maternal grandmother, Taffy Goldsmith, was such a legendary GOP operative that when she died, the flag at Texas state capitol was flown at half mast. (Abughazaleh inherited the mink coat Goldsmith wore to Nixon’s inauguration.) Her father is a Palestinian immigrant. Both her parents, she says, were Reagan Republicans whose relationship with the party has ruptured since Trump took it over. Abughazaleh’s own political views took shape at college in Washington, D.C. She studied at George Washington University, and went to work at Media Matters after graduation, where she was employed until 2024, after Musk sued the organization, and she and 11 others got laid off.  The day the news broke, Musk tweeted “Karma is real” and his coterie of sycophants, including Libs of TikTok, piled on. Abughazaleh says it was one of the worst days of her life. The saga didn’t end there, either — Abughazaleh was deposed as part of Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters, questioned on video for seven hours. (The lawsuit is ongoing.) After she was laid off from Media Matters, Abughazaleh did freelance video production with Mother Jones and Zeteo, but she is stepping away from work with both outlets during her campaign. “It’s terrifying… I don’t have health insurance, I have no income coming in, and am using GoodRx like my life depends on it — because it kind of does.” 

Jessica Washington at The Intercept:

Nearly $7 billion couldn’t keep President Donald Trump from returning to the White House and Republicans from controlling the House and Senate. “It made me physically nauseous,” said Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, reflecting on the massive sums Democrats raised and spent on the 2024 presidential election, “thinking about how many people could be fed, or how many clinics could be funded, or how much student debt could be paid off.” So after Abughazaleh announced her candidacy for a highly competitive primary in March, she transformed her campaign headquarters in Rogers Park — a lower-income neighborhood in Chicago’s North Side— into a mutual aid hub. Situated at the front of her 9th Congressional District campaign office are rows of basics like diapers and winter clothes to medical supplies like Narcan. “We’ve also had people bring in stuff like nail polish,” said Abughazaleh, adding, “everyone deserves good things.” Anyone is welcome to come off the street, she explained, without checking for income or immigration status.

In addition to offering supplies while the office is open, the campaign also helps stock a community fridge available any time of day and hosts drives to collect specific supplies. A request for tampons for Chicago’s Period Collective, for example, resulted in a massive outpouring of support. “We ended up getting over 5,600, and my campaign manager’s car was just filled with tampons,” said Abughazaleh through laughter. “I wanted him to get pulled over so bad.” The point here is to “show” the campaign’s values through providing for the community, rather than simply telling people why they should vote for her, said Abughazaleh.

[“I can’t think of anything that would have made me be a Democrat faster … than people showing their values rather than just saying them.”]

“I grew up Republican,” she said, “and I can’t think of anything that would have made me be a Democrat faster — especially if it were today, when people have lost all faith in the political system — than people showing their values rather than just saying them.” Abughazaleh faces off against a competitive field to replace retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill. As of early November, 21 candidates had filed to run in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District — including a whopping 17 Democrats and four Republicans. The Democratic primary race will be held in March. Abughazaleh, a former journalist with a large social media following, is ahead of the pack in conventional fundraising, and hopes that her “experimental” approach to campaigning will help pull her over the finish line. In fact, she thinks the Democratic establishment could learn a thing or two from her.

[...] Abughazaleh’s approach has not been without its detractors. On social media, some people have accused the campaign of attempting to buy votes by offering free food, water, and clothes, in the same place as advertisements for the candidate. Accusations of “vote buying” are a serious risk for candidates implementing strategies like Abughazaleh’s, said Jessica Byrd, a political strategist who served as chief of staff for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. “One accusation of buying votes, and your entire campaign is under a microscope. It slows you down, it makes you less effective, and then you have to spend money to defend yourself,” explained Byrd. “So it really is a risk.”

Abughazaleh has already faced significant scrutiny in her race. In October, she was indicted along with five other activists on federal conspiracy charges over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest. She and her co-defendants are pleading not guilty. “It’s incredible” that the Abughazaleh campaign is going ahead with its mutual aid efforts despite the reputational risks and associated costs, Byrd said. The Abrams campaign instituted a similar strategy in 2022, forming a program to connect Georgians with existing services, from legal support to food assistance. “We were barely out of COVID, and it was really clear that we couldn’t just ask for people’s votes,” said Byrd. “We actually needed to ask how everybody was doing.” Byrd said she appreciated seeing another campaign focus on how they can help their constituents before coming into office.

[This story is also posted at Daily Kos]

Appearing on CNN’s NewsNight With Abby Phillip last Thursday, former Media Matters for America staffer and IL-09 Democratic Congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh torched the network’s MAGA hack Scott Jennings by forthrightly stating that everyone, even undocumented immigrants, deserve health care.

Abughazaleh is running to replace the retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D).

Transcript, via CNN.com:

JENNINGS: I mean, he obviously has that kind of influence, monetary influence, and it will make, could make a difference in an election. But don't undercount the influence of the president among Republican primary voters, his base. They're all enormously happy with him. He is the unquestioned leader of the party. And what he says still very much goes inside of the Republican party Tent. I believe that will include primaries next year. So -- ABUGHAZALEH: Does it include people who lose their access to Medicaid or the ones that lose their SNAP benefits? JENNINGS: Illegal aliens, they don't vote anyway. So, I guess it won't matter too much. ABUGHAZALEH: Are you saying that only undocumented people -- JENNINGS: I'm saying we're going to make sure that no undocumented person -- ABUGHAZALEH: 11 million people are going to lose their healthcare. JENNINGS: We're going to make sure that illegal aliens and folks who won't get off grandma's couch and try to work are not going to scam the system and we're going to preserve it for the people who need it. SCHULTZ: They need body work provisions. I think that's something that -- SELLERS: Define it. ABUGHAZALEH: What if you get sick and you can't work? SELLERS: Define it. Define able-bodied people. […] ABUGHAZALEH: Everyone deserves healthcare. JENNINGS: Even illegals? ABUGHAZALEH: Every single person in the world deserves healthcare. JENNINGS: Just for the record, as a candidate, you're for illegal aliens getting Medicaid? ABUGHAZALEH: I think everyone in the world deserves health care. JENNINGS: That's a yes. That's a yes. ABUGHAZALEH: I'm such a Democrat. ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: I mean, it is a yes. ABUGHAZALEH: Yeah. JENNINGS: It's a democratic position. Illegal aliens should get Medicaid. UNKNOWN: But I mean, I mean -- I don't -- ABUGHAZALEH: That wasn't controversial. JENNINGS: That wasn't controversial? (CROSSTALK) ABUGHAZALEH: -- controversial if a woman died in the hospital because they can't afford it.

From the 06.05.2025 edition of CNN’s NewsNight With Abby Phillip:

Kat Abughazaleh is right: "Everyone deserves health care.”

MS NOW reporter Brandy Zadrozny reports on the dark money campaign to attack Kat Abughazaleh in the IL-09 congressional race.

A shadowy group called “Unmute Democracy” was offering online influencers $1,500 to create TikTok and Instagram posts using their talking points. Since they weren’t endorsing any specific candidate, it skirts FEC rules on paid advertising.