The NPR Politics Podcast - The race for a safe Democratic House seat offers clues about the party’s future

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

It’s Primary Day in Illinois, where 15 Democrats, spanning three generations, are vying to succeed longtime Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in the state's 9th Congressional District. We discuss what the race tells us about the future of the Democratic Party.This episode: senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Elena Moore, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and Bria Suggs, and edited by Rachel Baye. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Elena Moore. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. Today on the show, it's primary day in Illinois. And in the suburbs of Chicago, 15 Democrats, 15 are competing for an open house seat in a safe blue district. The race offers clues for how Democratic voters see their party's future. Elena, you spent some time in the district. Tell us about the race. Yeah, well, you know, Democrats have two battles going on right now. They're trying to flip seats, but they're also trying to create the next generation of Democratic leaders that get people excited. And if you look at this district, it kind of shows that dynamic on display. Illinois's 9th district is held by Jan Schakowsky. She's 81 years old and she's retiring after this term. And there are, like you said, 15 Democrats hungry to take that spot with the top few spanning three different generations. generations from Gen X to Millennials to Gen Z. The two top candidates, Daniel Biss, who is 48, a Gen Xer, Mayor of Evanston, and Kat Abigazale, she is 26. And so, you know, that's generational change no matter what, how this ends up. But I was like, I got to go there. I cover young voters. I need to see this. Yeah. So tell us about this field of candidates. Obviously, don't tell us about all 15. Yeah. How much time do you have? Well, I mean, they have a lot of similarities. They're running on a very similar platform that really focuses on this idea of affordability concerns, wealth

inequality, and then pushing for Democrats to fight harder in Washington. But I think that the big differentiator here is how, you know, direct are they going to criticize their own party? How much are they running to change party norms? And I think that's where you see a split between Aba Gazzale and Biss. Biss obviously has a lot more establishment support. And Abugazale is saying we need to change the way we run primaries and the way we legislate in office. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, the younger progressives in these blue districts have really pushed a lot of the Democratic leaders to adopt a more left-wing progressive populist message when it comes to, you know, economics in particular. So I don't know that there's that much of a difference between these

candidates on the message, but there certainly is a difference on willingness to accept outside money. And the idea, I think with that is not so much that you take money, but it's the access, the thought of who would you be doing favors for. And would you really be pushing for this left wing populist message with the same fervor that somebody else who isn't taking that money is? I guess that's the argument that those younger progressives would make. And also to state the obvious, whoever wins this primary is going to be the person that represents this district in these super solid blue areas. The primary is the election. Yeah. I mean, that's why it was such a big deal in 2018 when New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had that upset against Joe Crowley in New York

because when she won that primary, we knew that meant she was headed to Washington. I also think it's just worth mentioning that the reason I found this race so interesting is Illinois 9 is a safe blue seat, like you said, but it kind of symbolizes this broader kind of inner party. dilemma that the Democrats are having. Obviously, you know, the main leaders of the party will talk about we want to flip the House. We want to gain seats in the Senate. But this is a district that you can see some of those things going on behind the scenes, maybe so to speak, that are not the focus maybe of the front page, but like, where is this party headed? And I think if you look at this group of 15 candidates, you see very different versions of that, even if they're pushing a similar

policy message. The other side of sort of the politics of money here is that, you know, there are two main things in politics that help you win. Name ID and money. Do people know you and can you spend enough to be able to win in that race? And what those, I think, some older pragmatic Democrats will argue anyway is that you need the money to be able to win these races and you don't want to fight with a hand tie behind your back when the other side is perfectly happy to take money from wherever it comes from. Elena, you bring something up, which is we have spent a lot of our time this year talking about who will control the House and the Senate.

That is the main focus of the midterms. Why should we pay attention to a safe blue district and a primary in a safe blue district? Well, when you think back to 2024, Democrats had an enthusiasm problem. They counted on specific groups that they would say are core to their base to turn out in overwhelming numbers. And I would put young people in there, obviously black and brown voters. And Democrats struggled to have their base show up for them in 2024. So I think when we look at a district like this, a lot of these candidates are running to excite voters again who maybe haven't felt as proud to be part of the Democratic Party in a while. I mean, I talk to so many especially young

people, but progressives of every generation who are like kind of sigh before they give me their thoughts on the party. And that was no exception in Illinois. But, you know, when I was walking around, I talked to one young person who he told me he was never excited to vote for a politician before, but he actually was excited to vote for Kat Abugazale. And I think that is striking to me. How do candidates drum up enthusiasm right now? It reminds me of what we saw in New York City with mayors around Mamdani. What are the messages resonating? And it seems like this idea of really seeing people's economic strain. And the villain of big corporations,

billionaires is kind of what's engaging people. Yeah, I think there's a few things that are interesting about this race. Number one, I mean, this is a seat that hasn't been open since the 90s. I mean, the 90s is new again. And that's where we're at with this race as well. Jan Schakowski had been in this seat for a very long time. And the person who was elected to the seat before Shikowsky was first elected in 1948. So you're talking about two people who,

have held the seat for the better part of the last 100 years, pretty much. So, you know, number one, sometimes it's, it takes a long time for these seats to come available, especially ones that are very red or very blue because the incumbency rate is so high, people hold on to these seats. And I do think that it becomes a symbol of generational change whenever you have that, uh, kind of thing happen. Because it highlights a lot of the issues that, um, you know, people have been sort of clamoring for. Um, you know, we talked about some of the youth. We talked about populist message. And there's also this divide over Israel, which I think we'll probably have to talk about quite a bit here. Domenico, let's go there. In this race in Illinois, there has been a lot

of conversation about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, better known as APAC. It has spent millions of dollars to influence the outcome. How is that affecting this race? Yeah, I mean, they've spent millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars, you know, across multiple cycles and has weighed in pretty heavily in the Illinois primaries up and down the ballot, not just in this race. But it's become a bit of a flashpoint here because you've got multiple candidates, number one, and they're really trying to boost state senator Laura Fine, who's a strong supporter of Israel. And that's really irritated someone like Daniel Biss, who is the Evanston mayor. He's the grandson of a Holocaust survivor but has had questions about Israel's tactics post October 7th. And when Elena talks about some of the other candidates in this race, those candidates are very much against a lot of what Israel has done. And where some dirty pool has kind of come into play here, we've seen a bank shot with a little bit of a masset from...

A mass say? Is that a basketball term? Pool. Dirty pool? Oh. Oh, yes. Bank shot. You're thinking different bank shot. I am talking about pool bank shot. Okay.

Thank you. Sorry. Thank you for clarifying. That's okay. There's been this ad that has been run to boost another candidate in the race, Bushra Amiwala, who is a fierce critic of Israel. She's a lesser-known candidate. You would think, why would a group that has affiliation with A-PAC, not even clear that it's APAC itself, but that they share vendors with this outside group, you know, that they're running

in the sand that seems pretty innocuous, says that she's, you know, pretty progressive. Well, you want to be able to try to split the vote among these progressives to try to boost fine. That's the, that's the calculus here in this, in this game of pool. APAC direct spending is not really what's happening here. It is these outside groups that are under a different name where we're seeing. seeing a lot of overlap in, you know, who's supporting those groups and the connection there. I mean, in Illinois 9, Laura Fine, the senator who has benefited from support from APAC. There's a group called one of several, but this one is called elect Chicago women. And it has spent almost $6 million

in support of fine and against BIS. So they're undernames that people would not associate with APAC. Elena, is it safe to say that in this Democratic primary and arguably in many Democratic primaries these days, being associated with APAC is actually toxic and negative and you don't want that? I think increasingly so. It comes up a lot on the campaign trail. It's been reported on a lot. It's kind of like the first line of attack we've been hearing from Biss and Abigazale, almost like that is another opponent in this race. And I think it's clouded a lot of fines, messaging because again, you know, you look at all of these candidates and they do have very similar platforms. And so I think you're seeing these opponents try to differentiate themselves by, you know, this is like the thing that is separating her. And so it's kind of being emphasized. Also, like, this is such a weird thing because Bushra Amiwala and Kat Abagazale are actually courting some similar voters. You know, they're both hoping for the youth vote. They're both

running on a similar progressive platform. And so APAC spending in this race in what appears to be in support of Amiwala could, you know, take votes away from Abugazale. But then you're seeing APEC also spend against BIS and that might split the vote for Laura Fine. So it's like all of these, it's a cast of characters that we don't, like, the TLDR is like, we're playing like a weird game of like connect the dots, it seems like. And in the end, like these candidates to win are going to only be able to get like 20% of the vote because there's 15 candidates on the ballot. So it really like matters how people end up splitting their, you know, splitting that support. And Domenico, this is not the only race where APAC spending has become an issue.

It was also really big in another Democratic primary that basically decides the election in New Jersey for the special election there. Yeah, we've seen it in New Jersey. We saw it in North Carolina, a candidate got pretty close, who was very outspoken against Israel. We saw it obviously play out in different ways in the New York mayor's race. And in Missouri, Congressman Wesley Bell had gotten a lot of support from APEC and ousted Cory Bush. And he just did a video that was reposted by APEC declaring his support for Israel. And what's interesting about this is that support for Israel didn't used to be controversial in any party. And now, Now it has completely. I mean, if you look at the Gallup polling overall, which asks this question about whether or not your sympathies more lie with Israel or more lie with Palestinians, for the first time this year, it crossed where more Americans had more sympathy with Palestinians than they did with Israelis. And a lot of that obviously comes from Democrats, but it also comes from independence. And we've seen that in multiple polls now.

All right. We're going to take a quick break, and we will have more in a moment. And we're back. And I want to turn to the Senate. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is retiring after nearly 30 years in office. What should we know about the race to fill his seat? Yeah. I mean, this comes down to money, power, crypto, and race. Isn't crypto money? We don't have enough time for that, Tim. And I don't have the answer. It comes down to power, crypto slash money things and race. Okay. Let's talk about it. Well, the main candidates here are Lieutenant Governor Giuliana Stratton, who's endorsed by the governor, J.B. Pritzker, as well as sitting Senator Tammy Duckworth. And the other leading candidate is Congressman Rajah Krishnamorti. He's really fundraising in this race at levels that are really kind of blowing away the field. He's spent more than $28 million on ads from his campaign. He's gotten a $10 million boost in support from a pro-crypto super PAC. The crypto piece of this.

has become something that Stratton, as well as Congresswoman Robin Kelly, have been attacking Krishna Morti over. And it's really become this sort of thing that we've seen where just so much money has gone into this race and is really testing the power players in the state. Right, because we should note that Governor J.B. Pritzker is also very wealthy. Very wealthy. He's a lot of money. He's a billionaire who's heir to the Hyatt hotels chain. So, you know, yeah, somebody with a ton of cash on hand. And who may or may not be absolutely completely positioning himself to be a presidential candidate in 2020. What? Damn, he's focused on his state and governing.

He is definitely positioning himself for 2028. And certainly something like this, as much as we've talked about President Trump and his endorsement prowess within Republican primaries and MAGA candidates and his ability to really sway those races, you know, how much power does someone like Pritzker have in his own state? And that's something that certainly he'll be able to tout or he'll be criticized for if he does run in 2028. And that is one of the many things that we are watching as returns come in. You know, whatever happens in November, it is clear that this year marks a changing of the guard with dozens of members of Congress retiring. We're talking mostly about Democrats today. And there are many of them, including Durbin and Chikowsky and longtime leaders like Nancy Pelosi and St. Any Hoyer, you know, is this now a moment where the Democratic Party redefines itself?

Well, I mean, if you think about just what's happening in Illinois, I mean, when you have someone like Krishna-Morty and Robin Kelly also moving on to try to win the Senate race, Robin Kelly's 70 years old next month. And so those two seats are opening up, Illinois's second congressional district and the eighth congressional district. And we're seeing this play out in all kinds of Democratic primaries in places like the main Senate race, which, is going to be key for whether or not Democrats have a shot at this uphill battle to win control of the Senate. You have a fairly young candidate in Graham Platner against the governor of the state who is 78 years old. And is the choice of the Democratic established. Janet Mills. Yeah,

I mean, I think the thing here is that no one wants to talk about, you know, in the party that in 2024, Joe Biden's age was a huge, huge, huge problem with voters. And I think that it's something that party leaders are still wrestling with, both how to explicitly speak about and how to move forward from. And so we're seeing a very diverse range of solutions to that, we'll say that, because obviously there is the formal, I'm passing the torch. I'm going to retire. And just coincidentally, it is this year. And I am doing that. But then there is also a push among, you know, it's not just young people, but I would say broader progressive movement to tell people who maybe are not indicating their

ready to pass the torch. It's time to regardless. And so in addition to just general age, you know, people retiring, people running for different offices, there's this push to challenge members in the Democratic Party, sitting incumbents. And I mean, on age, you can see there's more than 80 Gen Z and millennial candidates challenging or running to succeed older incumbents. I got that from a report from this Democratic fundraising group called Oath that they gave NPR. And I think that that's really striking, that we're seeing people not go through the traditional waiting-in-the-wings style. I mean, TBD on if it works, it's very hard to challenge an incumbent. And again, it's more than just age.

Look at New York. There is a member, Dan Goldman, a New York City representative, who is being challenged by a more progressive older, long-time local official there. So we know there's a generational turnover. But Elena, in the Illinois race that you were talking about, you said that, largely they agree on policy. So even if the age changes, are you guys expecting the policy to change? I think candidates are pledging that it will. And then the divide is among voters is a pledge enough or do we need to just fully scrap anyone who's been in the system? You know, it's like it gets back to this idea of do voters trust that a system of some sort can work or if it has to be scrapped? I think getting back to this question of, is this the moment the Democratic Party redefines itself? I think a lot of leaders have different answers to whether the system is savable or if the

system is fully broken. I asked Kat Abagazale about this when I was talking with her in this idea of, are you a burn it down candidate? You know, do we need to scrap this and start over? And her argument is she's actually trying to build things back because she argues Trump burned it down in this system that ineffective government, but this larger idea, I think, that a lot of Democrats are talking about right now, which is what we have is fully not working. And I think that's very different than what we saw with the Tea Party. Because on the other side of this with right-wing populism, what we saw with a lot of the Tea Party candidates is that they felt like the government's just spending too much money. And you had a lot of people in sort of a shut it down caucus. And it's a lot easier to say I'm not going to vote for something.

I'm going to gum up the works. I'm going to shut down the government until you come over to my position, then saying, okay, I believe that the country should have minimum wage of $15. dollars, homeowners getting a refundable tax credit and a free lunch program, which are things that are being talked about in this Senate race, for example, to be able to go and implement that at a federal level and then have it pass the House and the Senate. It's really difficult, and that can lead to a lot of frustration from people who had a lot of excitement about getting into politics in the first place. Right. You hear from voters and others this idea of, well, gosh, incrementalism. It just isn't what I'm here for. yet you elect people and then they go and they're like, well, we got inches. And voters are saying, no, you promised me miles. Well, again, it also, like, it's a lot easier to be a candidate than it is

to be someone in elected office. And I think that's the next stage for populist candidates turned elected officials like Zerun Mamdani or potentially Kat Abugazale, which is that, you know, being an organizer is one thing. But when you actually have to work with people, you know, know, in office and make compromises, like, what's the line? And I think we don't know the answer there if voters are going to be happy with a candidate who promises ambitious change and then does as much as they can. But is that enough? Yeah. Dominico, because you're here and because we are talking about primaries, I would like an update on your can't let it go. The Texas Senate GOP runoff, President Trump still has not endorsed.

Yeah, and today's a deadline for candidates to withdraw from the runoff election in that Republican Senate primary, which remember Trump put on truth social saying that he's going to likely endorse somebody and he expects the other person to withdraw from the race. And he heard from both candidates saying that they would not withdraw in the race. So that would put Trump out there endorsing a candidate if you were to do so where the other person, person could win and buck Trump's endorsement. You know, there was a phone interview that he did with NBC over the weekend where he said that he's not convinced, for example, that John Cornyn, the incumbent senator, is the Republican's best chance to hold on to the Senate seat. He said, I've heard that. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know that to be a fact. I like him. I've always liked him. I like both candidates very much. Now, if you read

between the lines on that, what does it mean? The guy who talks about how polls are rigged is reading the polls. And the polls are not very good. And the polls are basically showing a toss-up between both Paxton and Cornyn against James Tala Rico, who won the Democratic primary. And if that's the case, Trump's not going to put his name on the line for, you know, either guy who, you know, has about an equal chance to win in the fall. And this is a good reminder that we're having conversations about the inner party dynamics on the Democratic side. What's the future? We're going to be having a ton of conversations like that. On the Republican side, very soon, Trump is a lame duck. You know, we're going to have to talk about how do Republicans move forward? What is the MAGA message without the MAGA leader?

And what is the Democratic message without the MAGA leader? Oh, my gosh. I heard from so many younger voters, especially this idea of I don't want a Democratic candidate to only talk about how much they hate Trump. Tell me what you're going to do. Well, this is why I think, and I've been saying this many times, I'm going to say it many times over the next couple of years. I think 2028 is going to be super interesting because it's life after Trump and which direction does somebody take the country on either side. Democrat or Republican, they're going to have to sell to not just their base, but to the country. What does America mean and what does it mean going forward and they have to sell people on that to be able to win? Yeah, I'm going to just say 2028 is here and we'll be talking about it on this podcast from now until the votes are in and after. If you want help making sense of political news every day, we've got you. Make sure you don't miss an episode by hitting that follow button wherever you get your podcast.

And if you enjoyed this one, please share it with your friends. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Elena Moore. I cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.