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Kat Abughazaleh
American social media influencer, journalist and political candidate From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Katherine Marie Abughazaleh (/ˌɑː.buː.ɡəˈzɑː.leɪ/, Levantine Arabic pronunciation: [ˌʔa.buː ʁaˈzaːle], born March 24, 1999[3]), known professionally as Kat Abu,[4] is an American journalist, social media influencer, and political commentator. Abughazaleh rose to prominence while working at Media Matters for America, where she gained popularity for her criticism of Fox News personality Tucker Carlson.
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Abughazaleh's writing has been published by Mother Jones and The New Republic.[1][5][6] In March 2025, she announced her campaign for the United States House of Representatives in Illinois's 9th congressional district.[7]
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Early life and education
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Katherine Abughazaleh was born on March 24, 1999,[3] in Dallas, Texas[8][9] to a Palestinian immigrant father and a seventh-generation native of Dallas on her mother's side.[10][11][12] Her maternal grandmother, Taffy Goldsmith, was a prominent Texas Republican for four decades;[8] she worked on John Tower's campaign for the Senate in the early 1960s, and served as President of the Texas Federation of Republican Women in 2004 and 2005.[13]
Her paternal grandfather, Taher Abughazaleh, was from Jerusalem;[14] Katherine says he and her grandmother both had to flee from Palestine to Kuwait after surviving the Nakba during the 1948 Palestine War. [15] Taher Abughazaleh visited the US to study at Riverside College in Riverside, California and George Williams College in Chicago, Illinois in the 1950s and 1960s,[16][14][17] and at one point worked in Chicago providing mandated oversight concerning Mayor Richard J. Daley.[18] He later worked with Kuwaiti real estate investors and eventually settled in Dallas[19] after periods living outside the US. According to Katherine, her father Aladin Abughazaleh immigrated to the US as a child and initially lived in Chicago.[20] Aladin founded a commodity trading advisor performance platform.[21] He also founded a data processing company[22] that became a fund of hedge funds administrator, later acquired by BNY Mellon.[23]
Her family held conservative and pro-Republican views, and Abughazaleh was a Republican through her teens; as a teenager, she considered joining the military, hoping to attend the Air Force Academy or West Point.[24] She credits a move to Tucson, Arizona when she was 16 years old for sparking her change in political views;[25] having attended private schools until her second year of high school, she changed to a school with many undocumented and low-income students, and she said, "[t]he bootstrap myth just shattered before my eyes."[12] In Tucson,
she saw poverty for the first time and realized that people didn't end up on the street due to a lack of personal responsibility, as she had been taught growing up, but because government and society failed to provide for people. One of her closest friends in high school couldn't attend college due to her financial situation, and Abughazaleh was flabbergasted. "She was much smarter and more talented than I was, and she just couldn't go to college. She had to help take care of her little brother because both of her parents worked multiple jobs."[26]
From 2014 to 2017, she served on the board of directors of an Arizona Girl Scouts organization.[27] In the summer of 2018, she served as Northeast Region Organizing Administrator for Everytown For Gun Safety.[28][better source needed]
She attended George Washington University in Washington, D.C., aiming to work in journalism or the Foreign Service.[citation needed] At GWU, she wrote and made videos for the student newspaper,[29][30] performed stand-up comedy, and studied international security and journalism, graduating in 2020 with a bachelor's degree in international affairs.[12][31] She remained registered as a Dallas voter to have "a lot more voting power" than she would as a D.C. resident.[32] According to Abughazaleh, she has been independent of financial support from her family since she was 20.[33] By graduation, she was seeking jobs in progressive politics.[11]
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Career
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Early career
In the early 2020s, Abughazaleh worked part-time as a bartender in Washington, D.C., alongside her media analysis work.[20] In August 2022, she drank a spiked drink, causing her to black out and then to consult a doctor. Her tweets about the experience were shared and liked hundreds of thousands of times, and spurred news coverage on symptoms that indicate a person has been nonconsensually drugged.[34][35][36]
Abughazaleh lived in Washington, D.C. until she and her partner, Ben Collins, moved to Chicago, Illinois in July 2024, because he had a new business opportunity:[37] becoming CEO of the company that owns the satirical newspaper The Onion, whose headquarters was already in Chicago.[33] She has since said that they moved on very short notice.[5][38] In the 2024 general election, Abughazaleh voted in Washington, D.C. rather than Illinois.[39]
Media Matters for America
By 2023, Abughazaleh had become a senior video producer for Media Matters for America; her job required her to cover the content of Fox News, including Tucker Carlson's show on that network at the time; this was reflected in the self-description of her Twitter profile, "I watch Tucker Carlson so you don't have to." Her work analyzed "how Fox informs the right-wing political apparatus that shows what's being introduced into the mainstream," such as transphobia and attacks on DEI policies.[40] In January 2023, she started a TikTok profile, where she covered Carlson and his show. In about four months, she had gained 130,000 followers, and several of her videos have reached 1 million views. By April 2023, some of her posts on Twitter, where she had more than 182,000 followers, had become viral, and she faced online harassment by conservative commentators and right-wing users.[12] In one instance she collated screenshots of the harassing messages, creating a "visual aid" to illustrate what she and other prominent women media makers experience frequently.[41] While at Media Matters, Abughazaleh served as SEIU Local 500 union representative.[42][43][better source needed]
In May 2024, The New Republic named Abughazaleh a political influencer to watch.[44] That same month, Abughazaleh and 11 colleagues were laid off from Media Matters following Elon Musk suing Media Matters.[8][45][46]
Independent media and political analyst
By July 2024, her social media followers had reached a total of nearly half a million across TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram.[6] On July 24, 2024, the progressive magazine Mother Jones announced that they hired Abughazaleh as a "Video Creator" to produce content on "democracy, far-right media coverage, disinformation, and radicalization";[6][47] she also joined the media outlet Zeteo to produce videos countering "right-wing narratives".[48]
The Democratic National Convention invited Abughazaleh as one of several content creators to cover the August 2024 convention.[49] While at the DNC, she participated in an Uncommitted sit-in[50] (though she says she was not a member of the Uncommitted movement)[51] and interviewed Ro Khanna about the Democrats' Middle East policy.[52] Abughazaleh said during the convention that she "honestly was shocked" and "appalled" at how little Kamala Harris's acceptance speech addressed Gaza and Palestinian concerns,[53] and later characterized Democratic leaders' choices in communications about the issue as "not just wrong but dumb"[26] because "a ceasefire—a permanent ceasefire—is wildly popular, and it makes no sense to sacrifice all of these votes".[54]
Politico highlighted her prominence on TikTok in September 2024, predicting her account would be among those playing "an outsized role in the last 50 days of the presidential race".[55] Analyzing the election results, she wrote for The New Republic that "[i]deally, a new party (or several!) would emerge" from the Democratic Party's failure, but "in the interim.... new blood, motivated by radical change rather than stagnant power, needs to storm [the] ineffective gerontocracy" of the party.[56]
Abughazaleh's coverage of the far right led to her nomination for a 2025 Webby Award in the News & Politics: Creators category.[57]
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2026 U.S. House campaign
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Launch
On March 24, 2025, Abughazaleh announced that in the next federal election in 2026, she would be running as a candidate in the Democratic primary election[7] for Illinois's 9th congressional district seat, which has been held by Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat and a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, since 1999.[58] Schakowsky, at that time, had not yet announced whether she would seek re-election in 2026.[5] Abughazaleh says she decided to run following Trump's second inauguration, in response to Democrats "clapping politely" and Democratic leadership's "culture of giving up".[9][59] Another reason for her decision was because Schakowsky, like many incumbent Democrats in safe districts, had not faced a primary challenger for many years:
"Part of the reason that we're in this mess is like, we didn't have a [presidential] primary in 2024. It feels, a lot of times, like the party anoints our candidates for us, and I think that we could do things differently," Abughazaleh said. "So that's why I ran, and that means I'm very excited that we're going to have a competitive primary."[60]
Shortly after announcing her run, Abughazaleh stated that she was attempting "a new type of campaign".[61] Abughazaleh said that the campaign would reject corporate donations and "the influence of the ultra-wealthy," and instead rely on grassroots donors and free public events, and work with mutual aid groups and local businesses.[5][10][62] For example, the entry fee for her campaign launch was a box of sanitary products, which were donated to a Chicago nonprofit for distribution among low-income communities.[63] Her other campaign events have included a knitting circle at a bar in Evanston.[33] Abughazaleh has stated her campaign intends to spend its funds on "trying to help meet people's material needs"[64] and informational services such as "know your rights" wallet cards, as well as local public service projects[65] that also serve as "office hours", such as beach and neighborhood cleanups. She contrasts her strategy with "a bunch of bullshit ads that are produced by consultants who haven't won an election since the 90s."[66]
As of May 2025, if elected, Abughazaleh would be the youngest woman, the first Gen Z woman,[67] and the second Palestinian-American woman (after Rashida Tlaib), ever elected as a Congressmember.[68]
The campaign's Federal Election Commission filing stated that the first week's contributions totalled over $378,000, none from PACs,[69] with the average contribution approximately $32.[63] Her campaign in the first quarter of 2025 outraised Rep. Schakowsky's.[70] In mid-April, a second prospective filed to run in the primary, with local high school teacher David Abrevaya launching an exploratory candidacy.[71]
Subsequent events
In early May, Schakowsky announced that she would forgo seeking re-election and retire at the conclusion of her current term in 2026.[72][73] Abughazaleh released a statement which thanked Schakowsky for her tenure in Congress, and praised Schakowsky as having been supportive of Palestinian rights.[74] After Schakowsky announced that she would retire, State Senator Laura Fine[75] and Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss (a former state senator and the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary runner-up) each announced candidacies for the district. Abrevaya also remains a candidate.[76]
A mid-May federal financial disclosure form from Abughazaleh's campaign[77] reported that, before launching her candidacy, she ceased paid journalism work and demonetized her past and current YouTube and TikTok videos. According to Abughazaleh, "she took those steps to avoid conflicts of interest and profiting from campaign-related social media content."[78]
Abughazaleh condemned the killing of two Israeli Embassy workers in Washington, D.C. with a statement that "Murdering people for their nationality is abhorrent."[79][80] A visitor repeatedly vandalizing the campaign office, and accusations from a Republican candidate that Abughazaleh supports Hezbollah, led the campaign to hire private security in late May.[81]
Reactions
News organizations in Illinois,[82] nationally and internationally[83][84] covered Abughazaleh's announcement and subsequent campaign. Politico cited Bernie Sanders who encouraged progressives to run as independent candidates in the light of declining popularity of the party, and The Washington Post noted the possibility of her campaign being part of an anti-incumbent movement akin to the Tea Party.[85] News coverage of Abughazaleh's use of digital media, including Bluesky (rather than Musk's X), predicted her skills would help her appeal to younger voters.[86][87][88] Coverage also compared her to other younger candidates (including several new media "stars") with progressive political stances who are seeking major US political offices, such as Zohran Mamdani,[63] Isaiah Martin,[89] Jake Rakov,[90][91] George Hornedo,[92] Saikat Chakrabarti,[93][94] Elijah Manley,[95] Mallory McMorrow,[96] and Deja Foxx,[97] and placed her in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's camp of "younger, energetic, left-leaning Democrats" who are "blunt about Democratic errors and missteps."[98]
Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, when asked about Abughazaleh's campaign in March, said, "I'm not familiar with who you are talking about", and praised Schakowsky as "a longstanding stalwart progressive member".[39] Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg, announcing an effort to fund younger primary challengers to campaign against incumbent House Democrats,[95] said Schakowsky was an incumbent whose work has been strong enough that his group would not fund a challenge to her seat.[99] The editorial board of the Chicago Tribune castigated Abughazaleh, and other Democrats, for using profanity in public statements, admonishing them not to stoop to Trump's level and "debase American politics even further."[100]
At the time of her announcement, Abughazaleh did not live in Illinois's 9th congressional district, having only registered to vote in Illinois's 7th congressional district a month before her announcement.[101][102] House Representatives are legally required to be residents of the state they represent in Congress, but not necessarily of the same district they ran in within that state.[103] Abughazaleh's nonresident status in the district, and relatively short duration as a Chicago resident, has drawn criticism of her campaign.[15] Local politics commentator Eric Zorn predicted that, even if Schakowsky would choose not to run for re-election, local Democrats will "get behind a more established candidate with better local bona fides and greater experience in government" rather than "a very young candidate easily labeled a carpetbagger".[85] Abughazaleh has stated that she and Collins had already been planning to move into the district when moving to Chicago on short notice the previous year for his job[33] (before she had considered running for Congress),[38][95][9] that they live "one bus stop" from the 9th district, which she claims is gerrymandered, and that they plan to move into it this summer,[26] as soon as they can break their lease on their existing home.[103]
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Political positions
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Abughazalehs platform aligns with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.[104] She favors expanding government support for childcare,[105] universal pre-K,[64] and Medicare for All[66] (including healthcare for undocumented immigrants),[106] supporting the Second Bill of Rights originally proposed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[107] She is a supporter of LGBTQ and transgender rights,[108][109] as well as the Green New Deal.[31] Abughazaleh favors increased regulations on artificial intelligence.[64]
Abughazaleh is a staunch opponent of Donald Trump, and has spoken out against policies of his first and second presidencies. She favors Senator Jon Ossoff's desire to impeach Trump, calling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's reluctance "cowardice".[110] She criticized the Liberation Day tariffs, which she deemed regressive and argued would "affect all of us that aren't billionaires."[66] Abughazaleh is against proposed changes to voter registration laws in the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, saying that it would prevent women from exercising their right to vote if they chose not to retain their maiden names after marriage.[84]
Abughazaleh has criticized Israel's role in the Gaza war, saying, "War crimes are a bad thing no matter who commits them. No matter who they’re being committed against."[63] She has called for "the immediate release of all hostages held in Gaza and a permanent ceasefire that sets the stage for peace and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians," and supports the enforcement of the Leahy Law.[111] The district is home to a sizable Jewish population,[74] and some political commentators historically considered it de facto "Jewish" seat in the Illinois congressional delegation.[112] Both Biss and Fine are Jewish.[113] Stances on Israel differentiate the contenders; opponents label Abughazaleh "anti-Israel" due to her outspoken criticism of the war in Gaza.[63] According to Jewish Insider, Abughazaleh is not regarded as a serious candidate because of her relative inexperience and "incendiary rhetoric", including social media posts in which Abughazaleh has used the slogan "from the river to the sea"[a] and described Israel as a "genocidal apartheid regime".[113]
Abughazaleh approves of Schakowsky's voting record, but calls for electing "representatives who face the same challenges we do" (such as high rents and the high cost of health insurance)[115] and have had similar experiences, such as school shooting drills.[31] Abughazaleh also criticizes her role in Democratic leadership: "if your party is not aligning with your values, which, based on her voting record, it isn't, you need to be more outspoken" in opposing the current administration,[51] such as "any legislative or parliamentary procedure they can use to gum up the works"[26] as well as physically "putting their bodies between Elon Musk and any government building".[116] In her view, "you have people like Schakowsky who have done a lot more than other people in Congress — but it's still not working" because "the Democratic Party has prioritized decorum and its own structure over actually representing democracy".[15] In a text message from her campaign, Abughazaleh accused Schakowsky of accepting donations from organizations that excuse "Israeli aggression", promising to vote against US military aid to Israel as long as the Gaza war continued.[103]
In her initial campaign announcement, Abughazaleh explained that she "[did not] think that the Democratic Party right now [was] doing enough". News outlets and Abughazaleh herself connected her campaign with the "widespread frustration" with the Democratic Party's leadership among its progressive members, particularly after Donald Trump's rise.[117][118] She also criticized the party for "just continually not listening to voters, not considering any other solutions... There's a lot of talk about being a big tent, but it feels like they're only extending that tent to the right, and they're kicking the rest of us out".[61]
Abughazaleh states that she does not "want to be a career politician" and is not interested in staying in office indefinitely, should she win;[115] to give the next generation a chance to lead, she would want to serve no more than five terms (ten years).[119]
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Notes
- According to the Associated Press, Palestinian activists say the phrase is a call for peace and equality following decades of Israeli rule in the occupied Palestinian territories, while Jews see it as a demand for the elimination of the state of Israel.[114]
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External links
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