Kat Abughazaleh Changed What's Possible in Political Campaigning

Ignore the specific issues for a second, and look at how she operated her campaign. She taught us lessons on a new way to run for office.

You're not supposed to run for congress in a city you just moved to. You're not supposed to run for office as an anti-Israel Palestinian American in one of the most Jewish districts in the country. And you're especially not supposed to run for congress as a 26 year old if you didn't come from an already politically powerful or wealthy family.

But nevertheless, a year ago next week, journalist Kat Abughazaleh announced her candidacy for congress in Illinois' 9th district, a fucked up looking snake of a gerrymandered district that starts in northern Chicago and skirts around the city's northern suburbs.

Last night, her campaign came to an end in a closely contested primary election in which she lost by less than 4000 votes.

People forget this now, but at the time of her declaration, she was the only candidate who decided to challenge 82 year old and longtime Democratic incumbent Jan Schakowsky. Schakowsky, who is currently one of the highest ranking Democrats in the House thanks to her 27 year incumbency, was a fine and mostly progressive representative.

I worked with Schakowsky's staff frequently in my time as a DC Capitol Hill reporter covering abortion care access and reproductive health as she has chaired the pro choice caucus for years.

But early last year, in the wake of Donald Trump's second presidential election win, much of the political discourse circled around the Democrats' aging and out of touch leadership.

Abughazaleh, who has spent most of her early adulthood to documenting the rise of the far right as a journalist with Media Matters, decided she wanted to do something more concrete to fight back against American fascism, and hopped in the race when no one else dared to.

It was only after she announced her primary challenge that Schakowsky decided to retire. Only then did 16 other primary candidates jump in the race.

I had known Abughazaleh for years at that point, in the way that being Twitter and then Bluesky mutuals means you really know someone–which is to say I didn't really know her personally. As an example, I didn't know she was dating fellow journalist Ben Collins, with whom I had worked with on a Daily Beast article years ago and who I'd also been Twitter mutuals with for years.

Last May, Abughazaleh was kind enough to come onto my podcast, Cancel Me, Daddy, to talk about her early campaign and why she wanted to run for congress in the first place. You can see that interview below but fair warning, I cringe watching this back now, I really had no idea what I was doing with video editing at the time.

But I'm not really here to recount the ins and outs of the race, nor her policy positions, nor her opponents. So if you're here reading this and eager to tell me why you didn't like her campaign, if you're one of my reply guys (or gals) that loves to comment that she didn't even live in the district when she declared for the race or that her position on some obscure leftist foreign policy policy wasn't to your liking, I gotta say:

I don't care bud, that's not what this piece is about. I want to talk about HOW Kat ran her campaign.

Running for congress is HARD.

I half thought about doing so myself last year, but I wasn't ready and my life was a mess. Also, I'm pretty sure I have too many dumb shitposts in my past to make it through a whole campaign.

When you tell campaign experts that you want to run for congress, they first thing they ask you is "how many rich people do you know that could give you money?" They don't ask about your political policies, or what you think you could contribute as a representative. They ask you how much money you could raise.

Kat was a journalist, with other journalist friends. She had spent years tracking and pointing out the extreme positions of this country's capitalist class. She had been deposed by Elon Musk. I like to imagine her laughing when asked that question.

But still she ran.

Money was always going to be a challenge for her campaign. Most candidates spend most of their campaign time doing "call time," meaning phoning rich people asking for money. We've all gotten the email and text blasts from various candidates asking for donations, it's funny that we don't even merit a phone call in our current political leaders' calculus.

Abughazaleh got around call time by streaming. It sounds trite, but it kinda worked. As a person whose entertainment is mostly reading, gaming, or YouTube, I hopped into to watch a bunch of her streams over the last year. If you have too, then no doubt you have the ubiquitous "holy cow" sound effect from a new campaign donation reverberating through your brain right now and will for good awhile longer.

She was effective at raising money on these streams, even as the political establishment mocked her for it relentlessly. By freeing herself from call time, and the requirements of the wealth class, she was free to take her own stands on key issues without worrying about upsetting donors.

She vigorously and vocally opposed Israel's middle east hostility in one of the most Jewish districts in the country. AIPAC hated her so much that they dumped millions into defeating her and then took a victory lap despite their candidate finishing a distant third in the race.

Any other progressives questioning the constant funding of Israeli arms that end up winning this election cycle would at least partially owe their win to Abughazaleh for sucking up so many AIPAC-funded attack ads.

She was an unknown quantity in her district at the start of the race. Like so many 26 year olds in this country, she was new in town but wanted to make a difference. Yes, she didn't live in her district at the start of the race, but whomst among us hasn't moved to a new city in a rush when you or your partner suddenly gets a new job and then ending up in not exactly the neighborhood you want to settle in?

Many said this very common American experience alone was disqualifying, Kat dared to challenge that.

When ICE began kidnapping people off the streets and made a big show of occupying the greater Chicago area, Abughazaleh was out there putting her body in the way of the fascist shock troops in ICE. She was indicted in federal court on bogus charges for doing so. First time candidates with no money or name recognition aren't supposed to run for congress after federal indictment.

But she showed up in the community everyday in real ways that everyone could see. Soon many of her gazillion other primary challengers were also out protesting ICE. Abughazaleh succeeded in defining the race and setting the standard for other candidates to meet. Now Daniel Biss is the candidate, another progressive, if slightly further to the center than Abughazaleh. And as he governs, he'll have to keep looking over his left shoulder for potential primary challengers and vote accordingly.

When the rest of the Democratic party hemmed and hawed over its support for trans issues, Abughazaleh was unapologetic in loudly supporting us. Like many other 26 year old urban Americans, she has trans friends, of course she supports them unequivocally.

One of my close friends, who I originally met through playing Overwatch and eventually met in real life, lives in IL-09, and had met 11 of the 17 candidates in the race. Through her I was able to get a better sense for the local dynamics of the race.

I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about the mutual aid of it all.

Abughazaleh's campaign office doubled as a mutual aid center. Folks could donate various every day household necessities and if someone needed something, they could stop in and pick it up, no questions asked. It was a real time preview of how she would have handled constituent services, which is a critical part of being a member of congress.

Again, she was mocked by the political establishment for this. Why, they would ask, would you devote resources to helping the community when you need all the resources you can get to getting yourself elected?

Read that statement again, and then think about everything that is wrong with modern American politics. Are politicians ultimately here to get themselves elected, or are they here to try to help their communities. Some may argue that you have to get elected first in order to help the community.

Kat dared to ask, why not both?

Her campaign may be over today, but none of it was for nothing. How many people had a slightly easier time making it in this life thanks to her campaign?

When so much of politics today is devoid of courage, compassion, and principle, Abughazaleh's campaign came to symbolize all three.

In a race where she started with almost nil name recognition, with no previous experience holding political office, and hardly any resources or money, Kat managed to push the other candidates in the race much further to the left than many thought possible.

She forced AIPAC and other centrist interests to devote millions in resources in her race that could have been spent on other races to tamp down the progressive left. She helped hundreds of constituents in her district without even first holding office. She got roundly mocked by the national establishment political machine.

And she damn near almost won anyway.

Many have asked me this past year how can Progressives fight back and win against the fascism of the Republican party.

Towards the end of the campaign, her social media and stream chatters began using clever portmanteau's of her name, like Abu-go-to-the-polls for getting out the vote, or Abughamentum for her late surge in polling.

In answering those who are asking how we can fight back, let me use my own Kat-flavored portmanteau.

Why not try the Abughazal-way?

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