During a February debate hosted by Fox 32 Chicago, Kat Abughazaleh said everything I’ve seen my friends say on Instagram in the past two years. And there was no skirting around sensitive subjects during her answers.

The candidate running for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District in the U.S. House called for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Abughazaleh called the actions of Israel a “genocide” and labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “war criminal.” She brought up concerns about artificial intelligence and plugged her campaign office, which doubles as a mutual aid hub to help constituents in need.

The former journalist and content creator had several moments where she looked directly into the camera and talked to viewers directly – at one point even pulling a brief "Office"-style glance at the camera while her opponents, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and state Sen. Laura Fine, bickered over the involvement of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the Democratic race.

“This is part of why my content took off in the first place,” Abughazaleh told me in a recent interview. “I try to talk to people and communicate to people how I want to be talked and communicated to.”

As a collective, Generation Z, born between 1997 to 2012, is still finding its political footing. Everyone is trying to define us: Democrats want us to be the generation of "brat summer" and coconut memes, while Republicans want us to be "edgelords" and "trad wives" and unabashedly MAGA. But no one – at least, not people outside of the generation – has been able to pin us down.

Abughazaleh is saying what those of us on the progressive side of the generation have been thinking all along – and does it in a way that resonates with us. She is trying to push the Democratic Party left, which, as she puts it, is actually pushing the party back toward the center.

Abughazaleh may only face voters in her Chicago district, but the sentiments she’s expressing are how progressives everywhere, particularly those in Gen Z, feel the Democratic Party should be addressing politics.

Kat Abughazaleh is a swearing, middle finger-waving, Gen Z progressive

Abughazaleh knows how to control the narrative on her candidacy. She got her own start as a journalist at Media Matters for America, a left-leaning organization dedicated to keeping tabs on the right.

Like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Abughazaleh is adept at social media campaigns, peppering her messaging with a slew of vertical videos convenient for mobile phones. She sees the comparison to the mayor as a compliment, but doesn’t see herself as the “next” anyone.

“I think that we get lost in this idea, especially in America, that there is a narrative to all this,” Abughazaleh said. “And the world is so random, and it’s really scary right now. But there’s no narrative. It’s what we make. We are what saves us.”

The 26-year-old is also not the polished, pristine politician that Democrats so often want their candidates to be – that even Mamdani, 34, tends to be. She swears. She once gave the middle finger to anti-LGBTQ protesters at a Pride event. She’s also made news through her actions, like when she was criminally indicted for her participation in an anti-ICE protest in 2025.

Yet throughout everything, Abughazaleh's values shine through. Her campaign office’s mutual aid hub has served thousands in the community and is proving to Democrats that there are things they could be doing now to help their communities. She has been admonished by Democratic politicos who feel her campaign is radical, yet the same people want to see the party capture authenticity like hers.

“So much of our campaign has been experimental and honestly laughed at by a lot of people who have been in politics for a long time,” Abughazaleh said. “And then they see that it works, and then they get mad.”

They get more than mad – they get scared. They're scared of losing power, and they're scared that someone with no political experience but the values they're scared to espouse is getting so much attention for being what the Democratic Party has been scared to be.

Is Abughazaleh the best candidate for Illinois' 9th Congressional District?

As it is one of the safest blue seats in the nation, the race for Illinois’ 9th Congressional District is competitive among Democratic candidates. U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who has represented the district since Abughazaleh was born, has announced that she wouldn’t be seeking reelection, leading to a crowded open primary to see who would represent parts of Chicago, Evanston and the surrounding suburbs.

Abughazaleh isn’t the only progressive in the race. Mayor Biss, the front-runner, also calls for abolishing ICE. He has the support of the Illinois AFL-CIO union and progressive legislators Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington. Biss says he does not support Israel’s actions in Gaza, although he did meet with local AIPAC members on in the campaign.

Recent polling shows Abughazaleh losing to Biss, but just barely.

Abughazaleh isn’t the only member of Gen Z in the race, either. Skokie school board member Bushra Amiwala, 28, is another progressive and one of the first members of Gen Z elected to political office in the country.

Abughazaleh faces an uphill battle with people who see her as a carpetbagger, seeing as how she’d only lived in Chicago for a few months before deciding to run for office. A Daily Northwestern opinion column from July highlighted this, saying that a “talented politician” should be part of the community they’re looking to represent and hold President Donald Trump and Republicans accountable.

"We are the only campaign in this race that has fed and clothed thousands of people," Abughazaleh said. "I was the first candidate on the streets protesting ICE, and I am the only campaign in this race that is funded by majority small dollar donations.”

I’m not sure Abughazaleh is the candidate who best represents her district – after all, I don’t live there. But when it comes to expressing Gen Z sentiments, no one is doing it like her.

“It’s been almost a year now, and this campaign has been run by the hard work and faith of so many incredible people from our staff to our volunteers, and the entire time we have been told that we have no chance, that we have no shot, that this could never work,” Abughazaleh said. “And now organizations like AIPAC are panicking because they realize that we’re going to win. And we knew the entire time.”

What I hope Democratic leaders glean from Abughazaleh’s campaign for U.S. Congress, regardless of whether she wins, is that Gen Z is not content being fed the same talking points Democrats have been making since 2016. We want to see the party take charge and do everything in its power to help people. And if we don’t get it from those now in office, we will happily run to replace them.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on Bluesky:  @sarapequeno.bsky.social

© USA TODAY