Kat Abughazaleh knows how to create viral moments. Can she translate that into votes?
By Arit John, CNN
(CNN) — Kat Abughazaleh started off a recent debate in her Illinois Democratic primary with a correction for the moderator: She sees herself as a researcher and journalist, not an “influencer.”
“My specialty was actually fighting the far right,” she said of her previous work. “Everyone that runs our country now – Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, Tom Homan – they are the people I used to report on and win against, and they know that.”
While she rejects the influencer label, there’s a reason it’s stuck. A clip of the moment went viral on her YouTube and TikTok accounts, receiving far more views than the debate itself did on YouTube.
That ability to generate attention online has allowed Abughazaleh to upend the traditional political playbook in her bid to win a House seat in the state’s 9th Congressional District. The question now is whether her unorthodox campaign can break through in a crowded field packed with more established Democrats with deeper ties to the community.
The winner of the March 17 primary will be heavily favored to win the seat held by Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is retiring at the end of her current term.
Abughazaleh’s strategy highlights a larger challenge facing Democrats, as they look for new ways to reach voters beyond traditional news, TV ads and mailers. A wave of younger candidates, many of them seeking to unseat Democratic incumbents, have argued the party must change its tactics and messaging to meet the current moment under President Donald Trump’s second term.
The digital-first approach also tests whether rallying support online can help make up for potential weak points campaigns may have.
Some candidates — such as Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Arizona congressional candidate and Gen Z activist Deja Foxx — have failed to translate their online attention into electoral wins in recent races.
But progressives have pointed to the success of others like Zohran Mamdani, who used digital video to break through in his New York mayoral campaign last year.
While Abughazaleh has a national platform online, she’s a first-time political candidate with few local endorsements. A recent transplant who moved to the district after she launched her campaign, she lacks the long-standing ties to the district of some of her primary opponents.
But that same online presence has helped her outraise the rest of her Democratic rivals while rejecting traditional fundraising strategies like calling donors to ask for money. Her campaign has depended on small dollar donations, many of which come through livestreams she’s hosted on Twitch.
“It would be impossible for me to run for office if I didn’t already have an existing platform, and it’s stupid to try to deny that,” she said in an interview with CNN, adding: “We’re really just trying to be as creative as possible and make our campaign as accessible as possible.”
Establishing roots in the district
A central challenge for Abughazaleh has been establishing herself in a district she’s lived in since last May. She has turned her campaign office into a mutual aid hub, where residents can receive items like menstrual products, and has participated in protests and local events. But the other leading contenders in the race — Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and state Sen. Laura Fine — have both served in the state legislature and lived in the district for decades.
Alejandro Verdin, a Democratic strategist working on a race in the nearby 7th Congressional District, said Abughazaleh has run a smart, modern campaign, but Biss is a known entity among the progressive voters both candidates need.
“In similar races in Illinois, voters are really looking for candidates that have a track record and can be an effective counterweight to Trump,” he said. “And Biss definitely fits that profile.”
During a recent debate, Abughazaleh said that she didn’t move to the state planning to run for office, but felt compelled to run in the district covering the neighborhood she and her partner wanted to live in. Fine said she’s lived in the district most of her life and decided to run for office after her family’s health insurance tried to cancel their coverage after her husband was in a bad car accident. That experience, Fine said, led her to run for the state House and back consumer protection bills.
“I’ve taken Illinois from a state that favored industry, to one of the more consumer friendly states in the country,” Fine said. “That’s my reason for being here.”
Abughazaleh has pushed back on the idea that her recent move to the district is a negative. When asked about her commitment to the district, she noted that her grandfather moved to Chicago decades ago and her father learned English there.
“But I also don’t want to lead with that, because this is a city of transplants and immigrants and refugees in our own country,” she said during the same debate. “I don’t want to play into this narrative that they can’t make a positive change because they’re not from here.”
Jaimey Sexton, a Chicago-based Democratic strategist who is not involved in the primary, said the “carpetbagger” attacks matter less than they once did, given how transient society is now.
“It matters to older, more reliable voters,” he said. “Her big question is, can she galvanize the younger, progressive, ethnic vote who wants change?”
Abughazaleh grew up in Dallas, the granddaughter of a Republican operative on her mother’s side and on her father’s side, survivors of the Nakba of 1948, when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes in what is now Israel.
Her background – as a Palestinian American and a former conservative – has shaped key parts of her approach to politics.
During the 2024 Democratic National Convention, where she was credentialed as a content creator, she camped outside with activists who pushed unsuccessfully for a Palestinian speaker. Throughout the race, she’s been the most vocal critic of Israel and its war in Gaza, which she has called a genocide. (A UN Commission found last year that Israel committed genocide in Gaza in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attack, a claim Israel has denied.)
Biss and Fine have not gone far enough, she’s argued.
Biss met with AIPAC and submitted a policy paper, though he said he didn’t seek their endorsement. Fine has received donations from people who’ve previously given to AIPAC causes, though she’s noted her campaign can’t coordinate with outside groups.
Several Democratic candidates in the race, including Biss and Abughazaleh, have criticized the millions of dollars pouring into the race from dark money groups they say are tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The groups, including Elect Chicago Women, have boosted Fine and targeted Biss. In the final days of the campaign, Chicago Progressive Partnership, a new super PAC reported to have ties to Elect Chicago Women, has started running attacks against Abughazaleh, which she’s argued is a sign that AIPAC is worried her campaign has momentum.
AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s been kind of crazy how much has changed, how people talked about myself and Palestine and AIPAC,” Abughazaleh said. “I wish it didn’t take the deaths of so many civilians for people to come to this point, but it’s the first time in my life that people have consistently cared about Palestinians.”
The ad from Chicago Progressive Partnership highlights that she moved to the state two years ago and wrote in her high school newspaper that she supported then-Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio for president.
“Who is the real Kat Abughazaleh?” the ad says. “We don’t really know.”
As is her style, Abughazaleh mocked and analyzed the ad on her YouTube channel.
“If I’m an opp, I’ve really taken the most painful route for it,” she said. “But I’m not, which is why AIPAC is trying to cause progressive infighting, and trying to peel young people away from our campaign. Because they know we can win.”
From Reagan Republican to democratic socialist
Abughazaleh said her shift to the left began in high school. When she was 15, her family left Dallas for Tucson, where she said she became friends with a girl who couldn’t afford to go to college, even with scholarships.
“I was like, ‘Wait, you mean Ronald Reagan wasn’t right about everything?’” she said. “That sounds silly, but when you are only exposed to what an entire industry of misinformation from billionaires has exposed you to, you might think a lot of things that are just not true.”
After college she began working at Media Matters, a left-leaning site that monitors right-wing media, as a researcher and video producer.
Like many young progressive candidates, Abughazaleh has argued for a more adversarial approach to politics against Republicans – and some fellow Democrats.
She has already shown what those tactics might look like. Last fall, she was one of six people indicted for protesting outside of an ICE facility in Broadview. The group, dubbed the “Broadview Six,” was accused of blocking a federal agent’s vehicle.
Abughazaleh has worn the charges like a badge of honor. Her closing campaign ad features footage of the protest, including images of law enforcement agents shoving and knocking her to the ground. The ad is about “what we should expect from lawmakers who have the power, platform and privilege to stand up to ICE when so few of us do,” she said.
Still, much of the progressive movement has either fallen behind Biss or, as was the case with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, stayed out of the race entirely.
The Evanston mayor has been endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Schakowsky has also backed Biss. Abughazaleh, who got into the race before the incumbent declined another run, has been backed by Rep. Ro Khanna and Justice Democrats, a group that backs challenges to Democrats.
Abughazaleh attributed her lack of institutional support to politics as usual. “That’s not something I want to hold against anyone – I get it,” she said. “It’s something new that’s happening, and we are proving ourselves.”
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
