The Democrats’ party-wide push for generational change is running into some major roadblocks in Illinois, with two former members of Congress well-positioned to regain their seats thanks to heavy funding by outside interest groups.
In the 2nd District, Jesse Jackson, Jr., who left Congress in 2012 amid a corruption scandal, is the frontrunner. In the more suburban 8th District, business-friendly former Rep. Melissa Bean has a huge spending advantage over the other candidates. Even in the 9th District, where two progressives are leading, polling indicates a long-time politician is favored over a 26-year-old newcomer.
The results, in one of the first major sets of primaries this cycle, will be closely watched and could complicate the belief Democratic voters are ready to throw the bums out and elect fresh faces to replace octogenarian incumbents, or at the very least suggest those desires aren’t strong enough to overcome millions of dollars’ worth of television ads from outside interest groups.
David Hogg, the Democratic activist who runs Leaders We Deserve, which backs youthful candidates for office and is supporting 40-year-old state Sen. Robert Peters against Jackson, 61, said the results may end up more reflective of money than anything else.
“I don’t think it’s a signal of the hunger for generational change. The hunger is definitely there,” he said. “In most of these races, we know, whoever raises the most money is typically the person who wins. And usually the person who raises the most money, unfortunately, is the person who’s willing to sell out the most to whatever special interest is willing to curry favor with them.”
Both Jackson and Bean are benefiting from super PACs spending millions of dollars on their behalf. A group funded by OpenAI has put more than $1 million into ads backing Jackson, while Bean appears to be the first Democratic candidate to attract the support of all three of the interest groups funding multi-million dollar political operations this cycle: the cryptocurrency industry, the AI industry and AIPAC. She’s received nearly $6 million in outside support.
In an interview with HuffPost, Bean suggested her former tenure in office was a clear benefit in the race, allowing voters to associate with beloved Democratic figures.
“People remember that I worked with President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and all of our Democrats to pass some of the most historic bills we have, which included Obamacare, which included the Wall Street reforms,” she told HuffPost.
Both Bean and Jackson are running in crowded primaries, which makes their monetary advantages and built-up name ID from earlier stints in office all the more valuable in a state bombarded with Democratic primary ads opposing Trump and ICE, which led a massive and chaotic operation in the state last year.
“This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to remake the congressional delegation,” said Matt McGrath, a Democratic operative who’s worked for Sen. Tammy Duckworth and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “But everything is about who can fight Trump the hardest and who can fight ICE the hardest. Nobody has the opportunity to distinguish themselves.”
Some generational turnover in the delegation is guaranteed: The retirements of 84-year-old Rep. Danny Davis and 81-year-old Jan Schakowsky opened up the state’s 7th and 9th districts, with two other districts open because Reps. Robin Kelly and Raja Krishnamoorthi are running for Senate. But the extremely limited public polling available provides little evidence that voters are flocking to the youngest candidates available to them.
Peters, who represents the state Senate seat once held by Barack Obama, is the leading progressive running against Jackson. He acknowledged a desire for fresh faces wasn’t going to be a deciding factor in the race.
“I think voters want to see change. People are unhappy with the Democratic Party and with where it’s going,” Peters said when asked about the push for generational change, adding: “This is a divided primary. I don’t think we could take a broad read specifically on that question.”
Jackson Jr., the son of the civil rights leader of the same name who died last month, was a consistent liberal in his first stint in Congress. He pleaded guilty in 2013 to one count of wire and mail fraud related to the misuse of $750,000 in campaign funds. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison and released in 2015. His campaign could not be reached for comment.
Peters has attracted backing from nearly every major progressive organization and leader, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). But that’s come with comparatively little money — he’s raised $1.1 million and has received just over $400,000 in outside ad support — when put against the resources the AI industry has put behind Jackson, the over $4 million AIPAC has put behind a different candidate, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, and the roughly $900,000 the crypto industry super PAC Fairshake has spent against Peters.
Peters portrayed the cash being spent against him as a reason voters should back him. “All three of these MAGA-aligned super PACs want to just try to buy up this seat and find people who are going to be OK with unlimited money going to a war machine, going to be OK with tech bros making money hand over fist, who are going to be OK with crypto corruption,” he said.
Bean, who has the backing of those same groups, suggested in a radio interview that Democrats couldn’t unilaterally disarm if Republicans are accepting the same money. (The 8th District is safely Democratic, and it’s highly unlikely the winner will face a competitive general election.)
She’s managed to leverage her first stint on Capitol Hill to boost her comeback. She’s got a raft of endorsements from current members of Congress, including former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.)
“I endorsed her because she was so supportive and kind and kind of a mentor to me when I took over her House seat,” Duckworth told HuffPost. “It’s just based on a personal relationship I had with her.”
But Bean’s record on Capitol Hill as a centrist has made her an easy target for attacks from the left. She voted for the landmark health care reform and Wall Street reform bills that passed during Barack Obama’s presidency, but as a member of the House Financial Services Committee, she worked against progressives on aspects of the Dodd-Frank reform law. Her occasional support for the bank industry’s position earned her the nickname “Wall Street’s favorite Democrat.”
Bean’s main competition at this point appears to be progressive Junaid Ahmed, who has similarly consolidated the left wing of the party. Ahmed has been running ads bashing Bean for past votes to extend a portion of the tax cuts enacted by George W. Bush and for funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“When she was in Congress over a decade ago, she cut taxes for billionaires and voted to give ICE $26 billion,” Ahmed says in one ad.
“I joined President Obama and all the Democrats to pass the democratic budget,” Bean said, noting the budget included funding for the Department of Homeland Security. “It has nothing to do with Trump’s ICE.”
But the clearest indication of how much generational change voters are seeking may come from the 9th District race, where recent polling has put two progressives — 45-year-old Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and 26-year-old journalist and researcher Kat Abughazaleh — in a tight race with the more moderate state Sen. Laura Fine. Both would be more than a decade younger than the average member of Congress.
But Biss and Abughazaleh have also been not-so-subtly contrasting their experiences. Biss, who has held elected office since 2010, notes his endorsements from Schakowsky, Warren and the Congressional Progressive Caucus to argue he’s a proven difference-maker.
“Organizations have looked at all of us in this race and said, ‘Daniel is the one who we have seen win and fight on our issues, who we have seen go against tough opponents when it comes with a real political risk for him,’” Biss said.
Abughazaleh, meanwhile, argues the party needs to see something close to wholesale turnover.
“If the answer was more career politicians, we wouldn’t be in this place in the first place,” she said. “People want someone who’s going to stand up to Trump and who isn’t going to cave like the Democrats and Democratic leadership have been doing for so long.”