Leading 9th candidates trade barbs over campaign funding during forum

(Editor’s Note: Alex Harrison reported this story for Evanston RoundTable, a neighboring independent newsroom. It was shared with The Record as part of an ongoing collaborative effort.)

Six of the 15 Democrats running in the 9th Congressional District primary participated in their sharpest forum yet Thursday night in Evanston, taking repeated shots at each other over campaign funding in between policy questions in the unique format.

The six participants on Thursday, Feb. 19, are the six top hopefuls for the Democratic nod, according to a recent poll from Impact Research. They are: Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, followed by State Sen. Laura Fine, Kat Abughazaleh, Mike Simmons, Phil Andrew and Bushra Amiwala.

The 9th Congressional District covers Evanston and much of Skokie, Wilmette and Northfield, while taking a winding northwest path through Prospect Heights and Buffalo Grove, all the way to Cary.

Hundreds filled the Palmhouse at 619 Howard St. on Feb. 19 for the event organized by Evanston activist group Pink Poster Club.

Group co-founder Savanna Essig-Fox told the RoundTable the forum has been in the works since September and has switched venues multiple times due to high demand, selling out its 230 tickets at the large venue.

In the forum, moderated by Valerie Kahan, the candidates started with a lightning round of yes-or-no questions, answering with paddles, before moving into longer-form questions picked and assigned at random.

The longest section of the night was a three-round “deep dive” on policy, during which the candidates could use one rebuttal per round to respond to an opponent’s answer.

While some rebuttals were used for direct responses, most were used to address the race’s leading issue: campaign finance.

The back and forth began when the candidates were each asked to answer the same questions, one of which asked for details of each candidate’s top three donors.

After Fine said her donors support her record on healthcare and other issues, opponents Abughazaleh, Biss and Simmons each took time in their responses to call out Fine for her campaign funding — specifically money from donors who’ve also given to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and right-wing politicians and groups.

AIPAC, while not publicly endorsing Fine, has backed her campaign by fundraising for her and reportedly supporting multi-million-dollars worth of super PAC.

Once the deep-dive round began, Fine immediately used her rebuttal to respond to the criticism, saying she’s “sick and tired of being everybody’s punching bag” over her donors.

“I’m a Jewish woman who has stood up to antisemitism, and I have donors who are supporting my campaign because they appreciate the fact of what I have done for the Jewish community,” Fine said. “Have some of them donated to AIPAC? Absolutely. Have some of them donated to J Street [a liberal pro-Israel group]? Absolutely.”

She then levied some criticism of her own, calling out Biss for meeting with AIPAC early in the race, claiming the group told him “We don’t trust you.”

This kicked off a chain of rebuttals from most of the candidates: Biss responded that he’s willing to meet with “groups I disagree with strongly” but never sought AIPAC’s support; Abughazaleh said that “we have to draw the line somewhere” on not meeting with AIPAC at all; former FBI agent Phil Andrew, of Wilmette, called out Biss and Fine for also running for state central committeeperson in the same primary; and Skokie’s Bushra Amiwala called out Biss, Fine and Abughazaleh for having “red box” messages on their websites, indicating super-PAC funding.

Only Simmons stayed out of the fray, but he later used his rebuttal to go after Fine, saying it’s hard to trust her progressive claims when she’s “taking money from people who put Donald Trump in the White House.”

He asked Fine if she would return the money given to her by right-wing donors, one of three times he pressed the question that night.

“You and I both know it does not belong in this district,” Simmons said, “and you, by your own confession, have voted the opposite of the people that are funding your campaign and trying to drown out the rest of us.”

The combative exchanges then mostly subsided, and some later rebuttals were even used to build on opponents’ points.

Essig-Fox said she’s “not surprised” how quickly the rebuttals were used, and that they worked as intended in the events design.

“The rebuttal was different [than other forums], like that enabled this opportunity for them to actually engage a little bit more with each other,” she said. “It did provide a different environment.”

After the forum, Biss’ and Fine’s campaigns both jumped at the other in emailed press statements.

Biss’ message claimed Fine “admits her campaign is fueled by AIPAC and MAGA money” and links to videos of her answering yes to two questions in the lightning round about accepting donations from AIPAC and right-wing donors, “the latter of which Fine said are bipartisan” donors who support her for her record. 

Fine, meanwhile, alleged Biss “lied to voters” by saying he doesn’t accept money from Republican donors. She listed several individuals who have donated to Biss and also donated to Republican groups or candidates in past years.

Biss told reporters after the forum that his campaign did find a $1,000 donation from someone who had also donated to Trump as well as Fine, and claimed his campaign, in response, donated $1,000 to the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights.

Pink Poster Club recorded the forum and will upload a video of it soon. Mail ballots for the primary started to be sent out on Feb. 5, and local early voting at the Robert Crown Community Center will start March 2. More coverage and election resources can be found on the RoundTable’s election landing page.

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