Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss led in early results in the battle to become the Democratic nominee to succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky minutes after polls closed in the district, which stretches from the North Side to Wilmette to Crystal Lake.

With 82% of the estimated vote tallied, Biss had 29.9%, progressive commentator Kat Abughazaleh had 25.5% and state Sen. Laura Fine of Glenview had 20.2%, leading the 15-candidate field, according to the Associated Press.

Biss chose to hold his campaign’s election night watch party at Double Clutch Brewing in Evanston, where St. Patrick’s Day revelers gathered on one side on Tuesday night while Biss supporters and campaign workers gathered in a private event space. One of the owners of the brewery, which opened in 2021, collects rare and vintage cars, and so those who came for Biss’ gathering were greeted by, among others, a green 1969 Volkswagen Beetle and a 1981 AMC DeLorean, of Back to the Future fame.

The brewery is in a part of Evanston with a more industrial vibe, and sits in a converted warehouse space. It’s about a mile away from Lorraine H. Morton City Hall, where Biss has served as Evanston’s mayor since 2021.

Abughazaleh’s campaign HQ was at a crowded LGBTQ+ arcade bar in Andersonville where neon lights flickered over vintage game cabinets. Supporters refreshed their vote totals between rounds of Ms. Pac-Man and $14 cocktails as Doja Cat blasted from the overhead speakers. Clusters of them flashed silver campaign stickers and embraced while they watched screens of results flash before them.

Fine was set to her election night event at the Glen Club, a Glenview club and golf course branded on its website as “old school luxury.”

The March 17 primary is all but certain to determine the district’s next member of Congress. The question for voters on Tuesday was not whether to send a Democrat to Washington, D.C., but what kind.

Schakowsky, a stalwart progressive, became a national voice on abortion rights, consumer protection and opposition to the Iraq War. The slate to replace her is diverse, reflecting the broader region, as both longtime politicians and a handful of outsiders have proved competitive.

Narrowly, the race between the three leaders has been a fight over who has the most solid grounding among a pair of established local officials in core suburban parts of the district and a young, newly established Chicagoan looking to push the conversation to the left.

Several others have been able to keep up with the pack in terms of fundraising or on forum stages, including former FBI agent Phil Andrew, who survived a 1988 school shooting and later built a career in crisis negotiation; Gen Z school board member Bushra Amiwala, first elected to her Skokie board at 21; progressive state Sen. Mike Simmons of Chicago, who has highlighted his roots in the district as Illinois’ only openly LGBTQ state senator; and state Rep. Hoan Huynh of Chicago, who has tried to carve a path based on a tax-the-rich legislative proposal.

President Donald Trump’s agenda, including his aggressive immigration enforcement in the Chicago region, has loomed over the race. While candidates’ visions for how to best resist ICE differ, the leading candidates have said the agency can’t continue in its current form.

But throughout the race, the most heated exchanges have centered not on policy differences but on money — most prominently, the role of donors aligned with the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee and PACs that appear to be aligned with the group, both of which have primarily benefited Fine’s campaign.

It’s an especially prominent question in a district that has had Jewish representation for nearly the past eight decades.

While Fine leads the field in terms of outside spending in her favor, Biss has received the backing of groups aligned with pro-science candidates and the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old newcomer to the district who has become arguably the strongest fundraiser this cycle in the entire Chicago region, has been hit with ads against her by a group that she has also accused of having ties to AIPAC.

Electing Abughazaleh would represent not only a progressive vote in Congress but an insurgency in the district.

Shortly after moving to Chicago from out of state, Abughazaleh initially launched her campaign as a primary challenger to Schakowsky, only for the congresswoman to announce her retirement weeks later.

Having never held public office, she has embraced an unconventional political approach, combining dropping expletives and fundraising on livestreams with hosting mutual aid events as she has sought to channel the energy of younger voters impatient with incrementalism.

Abughazaleh is also dealing with a different kind of political challenge: Trump’s Department of Justice indicted her, accusing her of conspiring to impede immigration agents during protest activity at the federal immigration processing center in west suburban Broadview. A jury trial in the case is scheduled to start in late May.

Abughazaleh has cast the charges as political retaliation and an attack on free speech by the Trump administration and said voters have shown they want a new generation of leadership over “a quote-unquote ‘more moderate’ candidate.”

Biss, who also protested at Broadview but was not indicted, has made the case in interviews and across the campaign trail that he’s a progressive who can work both inside and outside government. He’s a former assistant math professor at the University of Chicago and previously ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018 against JB Pritzker.

“The basic attitude we oughta have, when the level of emergency is what it is, is any tool that we can find, we use, and that’s the approach that I’ve taken as mayor of Evanston,” Biss said, when asked about how he would work in Congress at a debate last week televised on Fox 32.

Pressed about the outside spending in her favor, Fine has called for overturning the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and on the debate stage described herself as a “punching bag” for rivals unable to assail her legislative work.

Fine’s husband, Michael, lost an arm after a car crash in 2010, setting off her yearslong work on health care legislation.

“There are many candidates out there that are attacking me, but they can’t attack my record,” she said in an interview.

Supporters of Biss around 8 p.m. on Tuesday turned their attention toward the large screen with the running election results while the engaged in quiet conversation, or helped themselves to what was labeled the “Biss Buffet,” with a menu that included popcorn shrimp, pretzel bites and smoked BBQ buffalo wings.

It was not a rowdy or loud atmosphere, but a hopeful one. Abigail Aziza Stone came in perhaps the most colorful outfit of any those at the party, with a hat made of flowers and a bedazzled jean jacket with “Biss for Congress” written on the back. She also wore a whistle around her neck – the kind that many wore throughout Chicago last fall to warn of the presence of federal agents throughout Operation Midway Blitz.

In Evanston, Biss confronted ICE and border patrol agents in the streets, and those moments resonated with Aziza Stone, who said she identifies as Black and Native American. As a former Evanston resident, she said she supported Biss before he took a stand during the immigration raids throughout Evanston, and beyond. But that he spoke out and stood up cemented her support, she said.

“I’m going to stand with Daniel to the end,” Aziza Stone said, “because I saw him risk himself for people that don’t look like him. We need more of that.”

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