An unprecedented amount of money — nearly $62 million — has poured into Chicago’s four most competitive Democratic congressional primaries in a combination of direct campaign contributions and outside spending.
The massive sum has made the races to represent Illinois’ 2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th congressional districts among the area’s most expensive Democratic primaries since the U.S. Supreme Court opened the floodgates to unlimited outside spending in elections, the Tribune found.
The spending spike represents a range of interests, from labor or science advocates to organizations pushing for military aid to Israel, cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence.
“That’s the story of campaign finance,” said Michael Kang, a professor at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law who studies campaign finance. “The arrow always goes up.”
The nearly $62 million figure includes $30.4 million in contributions made directly to candidates’ campaign funds plus $31.4 million in expenditures from outside groups, mostly political action committees, to benefit or oppose candidates.
The sums in each race tower over past high marks set in similar Democratic primaries.
The Tribune analyzed direct contributions and outside expenditures for a comparable selection of the most competitive Democratic primaries since 2012, the first full primary cycle after the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United, which allowed unlimited outside spending in campaigns.
For those past races, an average of $2.2 million was spent on campaign contributions through similar dates, and throughout the entire primary campaigns, outside spending averaged $1.2 million.
The Tribune also tallied and organized all individual contributions, along with any outside spending, for nearly four dozen candidates in the four competitive Chicago-area primaries this year. In each of the four current races, an average of $7.6 million has been spent on campaign contributions, and $7.9 million on outside spending.
A handful of organizations, many of them super PACs, are responsible for nearly half of the outside spending this cycle. The groups are allowed to spend unlimited sums on behalf of or in opposition to candidates, but they cannot contribute directly to individual candidates or coordinate with them.
At least $19 million of the outside spending is directly or closely tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, a group that backs Democrats and Republicans who support pro-Israel policies. Another $5.8 million comes from groups that favor AI and cryptocurrency growth and oppose constrictive regulations on companies in those industries.
And spending continues to increase sharply each day. Outside groups have chipped in $12.8 million since March 1.
Such sums can drive voter attention as dollars turn into television commercials, mailers and billboards, Kang said. But it also bolsters concerns about corruption and inequality.
“Not everyone can donate this amount of money and get the attention of lawmakers and candidates,” Kang said. “That kind of skews government and gives wealthy people a disproportionate amount of influence.”
AIPAC-linked spending a key focus
Some candidates running in those four Chicago-area congressional races have accused their opponents of being bankrolled by AIPAC, a group that has come under increased scrutiny, particularly among Democrats, since Israel’s Gaza military campaign following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas. AIPAC is facing even more criticism after the U.S. and Israel launched a war in Iran last month.
AIPAC opponents point to a pattern: In each race, one candidate has received both a major influx of direct campaign donations from contributors tied to the organization and significant support from either a known AIPAC affiliate or a dark-money PAC with ties to the group.
Around two-thirds of the $2 million raised by Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller in the 2nd Congressional District race and two-thirds of the $2.55 million raised by state Sen. Laura Fine in the 9th District race came from people who had previously contributed to AIPAC or United Democracy Project, its affiliated super PAC, since 2023, according to a Tribune analysis that matched names and postal codes from early March campaign filings against the organizations’ own fundraising records.
About a third of the money raised by former U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean in the 8th Congressional District race and Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin in the 7th District race traced back to the same pool of donors.
Most of those contributors live outside Chicago, and about 40% contributed to two or more of the four Chicago-area campaigns.
The outside spending from PACs that are tied to, or appear to be tied to, AIPAC is even larger.
The United Democracy Project has spent $5 million to support Conyears-Ervin, who is running for the second time to represent the West Side and west suburban district.
In the 2nd District, which runs from the South Side to Danville, the super PAC Affordable Chicago Now has spent $4.4 million to support Miller.
And in the mostly northwest suburban 8th District and the North Side and north suburban 9th District, the super PAC Elect Chicago Women has backed Bean with $3.9 million and Fine with $4.4 million, while spending another $1.4 million attacking Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, who, along with Fine and progressive content creator Kat Abughazaleh, has raised the most money during the campaign.
The Affordable Chicago Now and Elect Chicago Women PACs were each formed this year to spend money with undisclosed origins. Rival candidates said both groups are tied to AIPAC, and the groups’ spending records show overlap with several vendors used by AIPAC and UDP.
Another new dark-money PAC, Chicago Progressive Partnership, has targeted Abughazaleh in the 9th District and Junaid Ahmed in the 8th District, both of whom are outspoken progressive candidates. Records show that the PAC has spending patterns similar to those of Affordable Chicago Now and Elect Chicago Women, spending about $1.3 million on the two races.
Representatives listed on the groups’ websites did not return requests for comment about their spending. The websites are sparse: Elect Chicago Women’s site, for instance, includes two apparent stock photos of women flexing their arms and a three-sentence paragraph declaring, “Women have led the charge for equity, labor rights, and accountable government.”
Martin Ritter, a former Chicago Teachers Union organizer who is now a Chicago-based AIPAC leader, declined to comment when asked whether AIPAC is behind Affordable Chicago Now and Elect Chicago Women, or whether the PAC’s leaders have urged its contributors to give money to specific campaigns. A national spokesperson for AIPAC also did not reply to questions.
Neither Ritter nor AIPAC has responded to criticism from candidates who have tied the groups to the spending. At a February news conference held by candidates endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Ahmed said the AIPAC money raised a question: “Does our democracy belong to voters or to the highest bidder?”
Biss added: “They are betting that our voters aren’t sophisticated enough to see through this. And their bet is going to lose.”
“Spending unlimited funds on war is not popular,” said 2nd District candidate state Sen. Robert Peters of Chicago. “And so they are literally using everything they can to try to hide, so that they can build and elect people who are going to be willing to give them unlimited funds.”
Miller last month fired back at the AIPAC criticism, sharing a letter signed by 55 Jewish and Democratic leaders decrying “prejudicial rhetoric” and rejecting “the notion that Jewish civic participation or support for Israel should be treated as uniquely disqualifying.”
“How dare people think that Jewish people are only one-dimensional? They care about health care, they care about safe neighborhoods, they care about climate change,” Miller told the Tribune last week. “I have been on the forefront with all of those issues for decades. So for them to just put them in the box like, ‘You’re only this,’ is insulting.”
AI and crypto cash
The next most influential outside primary groups are fighting for the interests of AI and crypto, and they’re funded by a small number of tech megadonors.
Fairshake, which supports the interests of the cryptocurrency industry, has spent $817,000 against Peters and $2.5 million opposing state Rep. La Shawn Ford, who has been endorsed by retiring U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, in the 7th District.
The top individual contributors to Fairshake are tech investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and the top firms contributing are the crypto companies Coinbase and Ripple, as well as Andreessen and Horowitz’s venture capital firm.
Think Big, the pro-AI super PAC, has spent $1.4 million supporting former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. in the 2nd District and $1.1 million supporting Bean in the 8th.
Think Big is part of a network of pro-AI PACs under the super PAC Leading the Future, which is also backed by Andreessen and Horowitz, as well as Greg Brockman and Anna Brockman, the president of OpenAI and his wife.
Leading the Future supports candidates to “advance a national regulatory framework that guides the growth of AI in the United States,” said Josh Vlasto, co-head of Leading the Future.
Andreessen and Horowitz have supported both Democratic and Republican PACs but most prominently contributed to super PACs that support President Donald Trump in recent years.
Representatives with Fairshake did not return a request for comment.
Industry groups “want access, and they want to be feared-slash-respected. Crypto seems to be following that pattern,” said Kang, the Northwestern professor.
Asked about his support from Think Big the day it was first reported, Jackson told the Tribune he hadn’t met with the group but credited the backing to his call to use artificial intelligence in family caregiving. Bean’s website also says she supports “U.S. leadership in AI.”
Peters took particular issue with a mailer from Fairshake that called him a “corporate pawn” despite his incessant calls for stricter regulations and higher taxes on corporations. Ford has also decried ads against him that focus on criminal charges from more than a decade ago as slanderous. Ford in 2012 faced a 17-count federal indictment alleging he lied about money he spent on a real estate rehab but federal prosecutors dropped all felony counts without explanation and Ford pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor tax charge. He was sentenced to six months’ probation.
Smoke-filled rooms or a distraction?
The massive amount of money has “sidelined so many issues that are important,” said Alisa Kaplan, executive director at Reform for Illinois. “Instead of talking about those things, they’re slinging mud at each other about where their money is coming from.”
Perhaps nowhere is that more true than in the 9th District, the race with Biss, Fine, Abughazaleh and a handful of other candidates who have proved competitive. Biss has outside support totaling about $1.2 million from multiple PACs, including one backed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and 314 Action, which supports candidates with STEM backgrounds.
Bushra Amiwala, a Gen Z Skokie school board member, said her goal of raising $1 million in the 9th District “felt unimaginable” at the beginning of the campaign. Now, she’s both met that goal and watched supporters of other candidates spend around that amount in the span of a single day.
Even Fine — who, like others receiving super PAC support, has denied any coordination with the group supporting her — has pivoted on the enormous amount of money supporting her to call to “eliminate Citizens United” and “get dark money out of politics.”
For her part, Miller has said the focus on who is spending what has taken up too much attention.
“This district needs to focus on transportation and the airport,” she said, referring to long-dormant plans to build an airport in Peotone. “We haven’t talked about that.”
The widespread speculation about the PAC spending in this year’s races can be damaging in and of itself, Kaplan said.
“It leads to this image of smoke-filled rooms and shadowy donors trying to influence the political process. And the whole idea behind transparency and donor disclosure is to pull the curtain back,” she said.
Plus, super PACs often “do a candidate’s dirty work,” making elections nastier with negative ads, she said.
Evan Brown, executive director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, said he expects anonymous PACs to become even more prominent as the primary election season rolls on. Unlike super PACs, contributions to his group are limited to $5,000.
In Illinois, the Congressional Progressive Caucus has endorsed Peters in the 2nd, Anthony Driver in the 7th District, Ahmed in the 8th and Biss in the 9th.
“This is the most coordinated effort that we have seen to date to obscure and pour money into Democratic primaries,” Brown said about the emergence of anonymous super PACs. “I expect what’s happening in Illinois to be replicated in primaries across the country.”
