Longtime Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) announced she will retire at the end of her term.
Schakowsky has been in office since 1999. She turns 81 this month.
“For the last 26 years, I have had the distinct honor and privilege of representing the 9th Congressional District of Illinois, my lifelong home and the best district in the nation,” stated Schakowsky. “Today, it is with profound gratitude and the utmost appreciation for my constituents that I announce my decision not to seek reelection at the end of my current term.”
Politico reported the possible retirement a few weeks ago.
Schakowsky did not choose to retire because her district became red. The 9th District includes part of Chicago and northern suburbs.
It turns out Schakowsky faced a tough primary against a young influencer who has lived in Illinois for less than a year.
Kat Abughazaleh, 26, announced her run in March.
Abughazaleh brought in “more financial support in her campaign’s first week than Schakowsky did in the entire first quarter of 2025,” according to The Chicago Sun-Times.
Most of that money came from out of state, too.
Abughazaleh addressed Schakowsky’s retirement in a video, promising to push “for even bolder progressive change.”
Schakowsky, who is Jewish, strongly supports Israel. That support brought lightning rods towards her from the far-left.
I wonder if Schakowsky’s support for Israel led to substantial financial support for Abughazaleh, whose father is Palestinian.
Abughazaleh has a keffiyeh hanging on her wall in her videos.
The former Media Matters employee has a history of bashing Israel:
In a fundraising text message following the official launch of her campaign, Abughazaleh further repudiated the close relationship between the United States and Israel, writing that “Democratic leadership should do something to stand up for Palestinians.” She also condemned her primary opponent for voting to “send billions to Israel.”On Instagram, Abughazaleh posted a painting depicting a woman wearing a keffiyeh wrapped around her head, captioned: “Collective liberation includes palestinian liberation. freedom for all means freedom for palestinians [sic].” She has also posted another photo of herself standing next to street art reading “Free Palestine” and wrote a caption saying “from the river to the sea” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.In the 17 months following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 hostages throughout southern Israel, Abughazaleh has launched numerous tirades condemning the Jewish state. She has slammed Israel’s war efforts in Gaza on X/Twitter, condemning Jerusalem for supposedly practicing “far-right militant ethnonationalism.” She has praised journalists in Gaza for “documenting their own genocide.”In 2022, Abughazaleh rebuked Israel as a “genocidal apartheid regime” and accused the Jewish state of practicing “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians. That same year, she also wrote that “pretending Israel is anything but an apartheid state is a lie people tell themselves to ease their own conscience” and that Israel “has no qualms with killing Palestinian children.”
Lovely. She’ll fit right in with The Squad.
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