In May 2025, Mayor Daniel Biss delivered a rousing State of the City address, outlining his accomplishments and pledging to combat the second Trump administration. The next morning, he formally launched his campaign to represent Illinois’ 9th Congressional District.

Nearly ten months later, Biss said his record in Evanston offers a blueprint for how he would govern in Washington.

“Most people in public office would say, ‘Let’s just kick the can down the road, take a pass, not do anything that’s going to ruffle too many feathers,’” Biss told The Daily. “I think that attitude is at the core of what’s broken in America today, and I’m really proud to have been willing to do what’s right, even when it’s politically hard.”

That approach was tested throughout the fall as Evanston faced increased federal immigration enforcement. Tensions peaked on Halloween when Border Patrol agents arrested five people and an agent’s car was rear-ended near Chute Middle School.

The next day, Biss urged residents to stay vigilant, invoking his experience as the grandson of Holocaust survivors.

“I use that analogy very intentionally, knowing that it’s hard for some people to hear, but also knowing that the world looked away in the 1930s,” Biss said. “That’s what allowed what happened in the 1940s to happen, and I’m haunted by the idea that we would do that again.”

Biss praised the community’s response to what he called “unbelievable trauma at the hands of masked thugs” sent by the Trump administration to “kidnap our neighbors and assault people.”

He highlighted residents’ “concrete, creative rapid response and mutual aid efforts,” which he said complemented the city’s policies to protect vulnerable residents.

“We’ve been at the tip of the spear,” the mayor said. “And we’ve become a model for other communities across the country.”

Biss pointed to the incorporation of ICE-free zones on city property and the city’s Welcoming City Ordinance, which he said compelled Evanston to terminate its contract with Flock Safety over concerns that license plate reader data would be shared with federal officials.

Biss has called to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement and protested alongside his primary opponents at the ICE detention facility in Broadview, Illinois. On the campaign trail, he’s described himself as the only candidate who can lead a protest movement while producing legislative change.

“You have to be able to do both,” said political content creator and Democratic strategist Liz Minnella. “You have to have the spirit of a protester and an activist but the head of a legislator, and I think he does that really well.”

Minnella, who has endorsed Biss, said she thinks 9th District voters deserve a “legislative powerhouse.” She called retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s (D-Evanston) spot in the U.S. House a “legacy seat” and praised her decades-long career of progressive advocacy. 

“He takes tough votes. He spends political capital, and that’s what I want,” Minnella said. “I want somebody to go there and pass laws. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

Schakowsky herself endorsed Biss in January. The mayor said her support “means everything” and argued her career demonstrates the seat “can be used to make change beyond just voting the right way in Washington.”

While his critics in Evanston and elsewhere have accused Biss of political opportunism, the mayor called such allegations “genuinely preposterous,” citing his controversial approaches to lowering housing costs and addressing climate change.

Biss acknowledged that his push for affordable housing, including the city’s Envision Evanston 2045 initiative, has been politically costly, adding that his mayoral reelection campaign was “tougher and more vigorous because of it.”

But the mayor still cruised to reelection over his lone challenger in last year’s municipal election. This month, with 15 Democrats vying to replace Schakowsky, his path to victory is less straightforward.

Nevertheless, while preparing at the mayor’s campaign headquarters to knock on doors Saturday, Schakowsky told The Daily she’s feeling good about his chances. She added that Biss is “hitting the right tone” and connecting with “everyday people.”

“I appreciate that so much,” Schakowsky said. “Just being part of the people who you are representing and listening to their voices. It’s not about figuring out every challenge that you have as a member of Congress, but really a challenge to make the people in the district thrive.”

One such person, Northwestern Dining employee Veronica Reyes, also attended Saturday’s canvassing launch, which drew members from several labor unions.

She praised Biss for backing the dining hall workers’ strike last year and spearheading the city’s Workers’ Retention Ordinance.

“He has supported the community of Evanston, especially the working people,” Reyes said. “He gave us strength by showing support to our fight.”

On foreign policy, Biss has sharply criticized Israel’s military actions in Gaza and called for a two-state solution to uphold the rights of every person “to live in peace and dignity with self-determination.”

In an August Substack post, Biss called for the U.S. to recognize a Palestinian state. Denouncing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the mayor wrote that Israel “cannot save itself by destroying its own soul.”

But some opponents have criticized Biss for refusing to call Israel’s actions in Palestine a genocide. While he said he does not criticize people who use that term, Biss emphasized his focus remains on building the broadest possible coalition for peace.

“That coalition is going to include some people who are 100% certain that it’s a genocide, and it’s going to include people who are triggered to use that word,” he said. 

Biss has also expressed support for the Block the Bombs Act, which would prohibit the U.S. from providing defensive weaponry to Israel until the country complies with international human rights laws. 

He argued voters deserve a representative like Schakowsky — someone willing to embrace the district’s ideological diversity on this “complex issue.”

“I’m deeply committed to justice for Palestinians and for a free Palestine. I’m deeply committed to my family that found a safe haven in Israel after surviving the Holocaust,” Biss said. “There is a strong political push to take a one-sided point of view on this issue that doesn’t see all people’s humanity, and I’m just not going to do that.”

Partly behind that political push, according to Biss, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the nation’s largest pro-Israel lobbying group.

Last year, AIPAC labeled Biss and fellow congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh “dangerous detractors” in a fundraising email promoting State Sen. Laura Fine’s (D-Glenview) campaign. Biss has also accused AIPAC of supporting Fine through a newly-formed super PAC, Elect Chicago Women, which has spent millions on pro-Fine and anti-Biss advertisements. 

While Biss met with representatives of the lobbying group last year, the mayor maintained he “never sought — and would never accept — AIPAC’s support in this campaign” in a January Substack post.

Beyond reportedly fundraising on Fine’s behalf, AIPAC is the top campaign contributor to U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.), the chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee. In a January letter, Walberg criticized the mayor’s decision not to send Evanston Police Department officers to end the April 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment on Deering Meadow.

Walberg’s letter featured private text messages from that time between former University President Michael Schill and NU trustee Michael Sacks, who contributed to Fine’s campaign in September. In a text exchange, Sacks speculated that Biss would publicize his decision not to intervene “to shore up his progressive credentials.”

“The most important thing I want Northwestern students to know is that there was a lot of pressure on me to do what would have been wrong for public safety and wrong for free speech, and I stood firm,” Biss said, noting his decision drew attention because of Republican attacks. “I think it would have been bad for me to do what President Schill asked. It would have been bad for me to clear the encampment and arrest everybody.”

Biss plans to brief Walberg’s committee on his actions this week, according to a campaign spokesperson. In the meantime, Biss said his political opponents are “welcome to keep broadcasting” his “good decisions.”

Ultimately, whether or not voters agree with his policy proposals, Biss claimed no one can accuse him of being risk-averse.

“The truth of the matter is that governments are full of elected officials who said the right things when they ran and checked the right boxes, and then when it came time to really fight, they backed down,” he said. “We can’t afford that right now.”

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