Kat Abughazaleh, an activist running for Congress in Illinois, turned her campaign office into a mutual aid hub.
Jessica Washington at The Intercept:
Nearly $7 billion couldnât keep President Donald Trump from returning to the White House and Republicans from controlling the House and Senate. âIt made me physically nauseous,â said Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, reflecting on the massive sums Democrats raised and spent on the 2024 presidential election, âthinking about how many people could be fed, or how many clinics could be funded, or how much student debt could be paid off.â So after Abughazaleh announced her candidacy for a highly competitive primary in March, she transformed her campaign headquarters in Rogers Park â a lower-income neighborhood in Chicagoâs North Sideâ 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. âWeâve also had people bring in stuff like nail polish,â said Abughazaleh, adding, âeveryone deserves good things.â 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 Chicagoâs Period Collective, for example, resulted in a massive outpouring of support. âWe ended up getting over 5,600, and my campaign managerâs car was just filled with tampons,â said Abughazaleh through laughter. âI wanted him to get pulled over so bad.â The point here is to âshowâ the campaignâs values through providing for the community, rather than simply telling people why they should vote for her, said Abughazaleh.
[âI canât think of anything that would have made me be a Democrat faster ⊠than people showing their values rather than just saying them.â]
âI grew up Republican,â she said, âand I canât think of anything that would have made me be a Democrat faster â especially if it were today, when people have lost all faith in the political system â than people showing their values rather than just saying them.â 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 Illinoisâs 9th Congressional District â 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 âexperimentalâ 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.
[...] Abughazalehâs 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 âvote buyingâ are a serious risk for candidates implementing strategies like Abughazalehâs, said Jessica Byrd, a political strategist who served as chief of staff for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. âOne 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,â explained Byrd. âSo it really is a risk.â
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. âItâs incredibleâ 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. âWe were barely out of COVID, and it was really clear that we couldnât just ask for peopleâs votes,â said Byrd. âWe actually needed to ask how everybody was doing.â Byrd said she appreciated seeing another campaign focus on how they can help their constituents before coming into office.
More Democratic and left-wing campaigns should consider emulating Kat Abughazalehâs approach: making mutual aid a big part of their campaign.











