Kat Abughazaleh is a 26-year-old Palestinian-American journalist, creator, and Democratic candidate running for Congress in Illinois’s 9th District. She’s grown in popularity producing viral videos that break down right-wing media and bolster progressive causes, based on her experience at Media Matters for America and as an independent content creator. When she launched her campaign in March 2025, she rejected corporate PAC money and employed grassroots mutual-aid tactics like asking for period-product donations instead of entrance fees in order to build a new kind of constituent outreach.

Her Palestinian heritage is a central part of her identity and politics: her father is Palestinian, her grandparents survived the 1948 Nakba, and she prominently features symbols of Palestinian heritage (e.g., a keffiyeh) in her campaign materials.She frames her foreign-policy platform as rooted in human rights for all civilians—Israeli and Palestinian—arguing that U.S. weapons and tax dollars should not facilitate war crimes. In a district with a large Jewish and immigrant population, she contends that advocacy for Palestinian rights and calls for accountability should not be dismissed as partisan but recognized as part of a universal commitment to justice.