Politics
Daniel Biss Declared Victor in 9th Congressional District Race Over Laura Fine, Kat Abughazaleh
Background: The U.S. Capitol building. (Mesut Dogan / iStock) Inset: Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss. (Provided)
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Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss has been declared the winner of a jam-packed Democratic primary race for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District seat, which is set to see its first new leader in more than 25 years.
The Associated Press called the race for Biss, who leads the 15-candidate Democratic field with 29.5% of votes, according to unofficial results, putting him ahead of former journalist Kat Abughazaleh (25.9% of votes) and state Sen. Laura Fine (20.2%), after 92% of votes have been tallied.
“This race had everything and it had fundamental questions about who are we going to be as a Democratic party,” Biss said late Tuesday. “Are we going to concede in advance, or are we going to fight? … And tonight the voters spoke clearly: We’re going to stand up, we’re going to fight, we will not back down and we will fight for the progressive values that are the values, not only of the district, but of the whole country.”
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky is retiring after leading the district — which includes parts of Chicago’s North Side as well as Skokie, Evanston, Niles and portions of Lake and McHenry counties — for 14 terms. She put her endorsement behind Biss, and some recent polls have placed him as the frontrunner in the packed race ahead of Abughazaleh and Fine.
Also running are Illinois state Sen. Mike Simmons; state Rep. Hoan Huynh; Skokie Board of Education member Bushra Amiwala; union organizer Justin Ford; Nick Pyati, a former federal prosecutor; former FBI special agent Phil Andrew; economist Jeff Cohen; Army veteran Sam Polan; community activist Bethany Johnson; civil rights attorney Howard Rosenblum; IT consultant Mark Arnold Fredrickson; and Evanston resident Patricia A. Brown.
Biss will now square off in November’s general election against John Elleson, who won Tuesday's Republican primary.
Biss, 48, is a former state representative and state senator who previously ran for governor and has served as Evanston’s mayor since 2021. He said he’s running to fight back against the Trump administration and billionaires who he said have used their wealth to “buy politicians and influence the system in their favor.”
“I am the only candidate in this race who has effectively fought the Trump regime both in the streets as an activist and in government as mayor,” Biss said in the WTTW News Voter Guide.
He said affordability — particularly in the costs of health care, housing, child care and other basic necessities — is the biggest issue facing the 9th District. While that crisis has been worsened by the Trump administration’s tariffs, Biss said that the root cause is a few big companies “controlling our food, our health care, technology, consumer goods, and entertainment.”
Biss in his victory speech said there’s plenty left to fight for: an economy that works for everyone, affordable housing and healthcare, accessible child care and a tax code that demands the wealthiest pay their fair share.
“It is time for a Congress that asserts its power, that acts as a check for not only this administration, but the wealthy that have a stranglehold on our politics in America,” he said.
Abughazaleh, 26, is a Palestinian American who has worked as a journalist and researcher and said she wants to bring “a new generation of leadership to Congress,” according to her campaign website.
“We need a different vibe in this country and this party, and I want to bring it,” she previously told WTTW News in announcing her decision to run for Schakowsky’s seat. “Obviously, the current strategy of the establishment isn’t working.”
While campaigning, Abughazaleh, who last year moved to Illinois, has also been fighting federal conspiracy charges after she and five others were accused of interfering with Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations after they surrounded an ICE transport vehicle outside the agency’s Broadview processing center in September.
Federal prosecutors dismissed charges against two of those six last week, while Abughazaleh and her remaining co-defendants have now filed a motion to dismiss their own charges on First Amendment grounds.
“The First Amendment protects the right of people to gather, dissent, and demand accountability from those in power,” her campaign said in a statement this week. “Dissent is not a conspiracy.”
An adept presence on social media, Abughazaleh’s campaign has drawn support from national progressives.
Fine, 59, was elected as a state representative in 2013 before becoming a state senator in 2018. She has said she entered the political world after her insurance company sought to cancel her family’s policy after her husband was in a car accident that left her family “drowning in medical debt.”
Since then, she said she’s taken on the “biggest bullies,” including the insurance lobby and corporate polluters.
“My approach is about more than just progressive values,” Fine said in her responses to the WTTW News Voter Guide. “It is about progressive results. A non-partisan study named me one of the most effective legislators in Springfield. I have passed nearly 200 bills into law by doing the hard work of negotiation.”
Simmons, 43, said he is seeking to become first African American to lead the 9th District, saying in his Voter Guide responses that his candidacy “gives a voice to so many Black and low income communities across the 9th, but to so many more whose lives and experiences mirror my own.”
“Too many communities — particularly here in the 9th Congressional District — have never had representation in Congress,” he said.
