Progressive influencer, 26, launches bid to unseat longtime Rep. Jan Schakowsky

CHICAGO (The Hill) — Progressive influencer Kat Abughazaleh announced on Monday that she’s launching a bid to unseat Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) in the northern Chicago suburbs.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk are dismantling our country piece by piece, and so many Democrats seem content to just sit back and let ‘em,” Abughazaleh said in a video announcing her candidacy on X.

“So I say it’s time to drop the excuses and grow a f—— spine. I’m Kate Abughazaleh, and I’m running for Congress in Illinois’ Ninth district.”

Abughazaleh is a former video producer at the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America who has also garnered a TikTok following of more than 217,000 people. Though the 26-year-old declines to explicitly name Schakowsky, 80, in her video or on her website, the progressive influencer makes clear that the district needs a generational change.

“We deserve Representatives who face the same challenges we do (or at least have some time in the last decade),” Abughazaleh says on her campaign website. “They don’t deal with out-of-pocket prescription costs or nightmarish rent hikes or existential fear about their lives in 50 years. You and I do.”

Her website also maps a timeline of when Schakowsky was elected to Congress and highlights the fact that she’s been in the House for 14 years.

“What makes our community, and our country, so great is that we welcome all voices and ideas. I have always encouraged more participation in the democratic process, and I’m glad to see new faces getting involved as we stand up against the Trump Administration. Right now, that’s what I’m focused on: fighting back against this extreme MAGA regime,” Schakowsky said in a statement.

“Make no mistake about it, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are dead set on ripping away health care from millions of Americans and taking food off families’ tables to give trillions in tax cuts to billionaires. I will never stop fighting against these shameful policies and will continue working to make life better for every single American.”

Illinois’ 9th Congressional District is located in the northern Chicago suburbs and includes Evanston, Skokie, and Niles.

The district is reliably Democratic, meaning whoever wins the primary is the heavy favorite to take the seat in the general election.

Abughazaleh would be the first Gen Z woman elected to Congress if she prevailed in the district; Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) was the first Gen Z lawmaker to be elected to Congress in 2022.