With a little over a month until the March 17 primary elections in Illinois, some candidates have been raking in huge amounts of campaign cash.
In two key congressional races in the Chicago area, some of the candidates sitting on the largest campaign coffers might surprise you.
The Chicago area will send five new representatives to the House, because of a flurry of incumbents not running again either because they’re retiring or running for the U.S. Senate.
Among the retirees is longtime Congressman Danny Davis. More than a dozen candidates are trying to take over his seat in the 7th District, including real estate developer Jason Friedman.
According to the Federal Election Commission, as of Dec. 31, he had collected more than $1.8 million in donations, the most in the 7th District race.
Dr. Thomas Fisher, an emergency physician at UChicago Medicine, was the second-highest earning candidate for the 7th district, with $626,991 in donations.
Three longtime politicians hold the next three slots in terms of fundraising: Illinois state Rep. La Shawn Ford ($407,230), Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin ($336,916), and former Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin ($328,111). Each has only a fraction of Friedman’s war chest.
In the 9th District, nearly 20 candidates are running to succeed retiring Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.
FEC records show 26-year-old social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh, who just moved to Illinois in 2024, had raised more than $2.7 million as of Dec 31, with most of her largest donors from outside Illinois.
She has more money than any other candidate in the Chicago area running for the U.S. House.
Politicians take the next two spots in that race. Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and Illinois state Sen. Laura Fine have each raised nearly $2 million.
But former FBI agent Phil Andrew had also crossed the million-dollar mark, raising more than $1.2 million by Dec 31.
Illinois state Rep. Hoan Huynh also has raised more than $1 million, and Skokie school board member Bushra Amilwala has raised more than $950,000.
Why are a lot of these non-traditional candidates raising so much money?
"There’s a fatigue among Americans about politics. Politics is a dirty word. It has been for a long time. We don’t think about people who hold public office as public servants the way we once did," said North Central College political science professor Stephen Maynard Caliendo.
The professor said President Donald Trump forged the model that many of these non-traditional candidates are now benefitting from.
So what’s more important, name recognition or money?
"It’s not the case that seasoned politicians or folks who have made their way up from lower elected positions won’t be successful," Caliendo said. "They’re being successful as well. It’s just that the proportion of people elected at higher offices is shifting, so that people who are newcomers to the system are emerging."
Caliendo said the evolution of campaign finance laws has also played a big role in how much money is raised.
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February 12, 2026 at 11:12PM
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