Checking Back In With Kat Abughazaleh | Hello Merge Tag Ep. 42

“What I would really like to see is more Democrats using their resources to help people right now to fill in the material gaps that Trump has created. I think it’s the right thing to do and I also think it is the most persuasive thing to do if you want to flip either chamber in 2026 and make a serious cultural impact.”

Kat Abughazaleh is running for Congress in Illinois’ 9th District.

I personally think she’s running one of the most innovative campaigns of the cycle, both from a digital and from a field perspective.

Listeners might remember Kat joined us back in April to talk about what it means to run a Bluesky-first campaign.

She joined us again to talk about how her campaign is navigating the internet, fascism and so much more.

She talked about the social platform helping her campaign raise the most money (Bluesky!), how her campaign is serving as a mutual aid hub for her community, what it means to fight back against the Trump regime in these dark times and so much more.

Listen to the full episode right here, or wherever you stream podcasts.

Find all episodes at HelloMergeTag.com or wherever you stream podcasts.

Links

Website | Bluesky | YouTube | TikTok | Instagram

You can find our conversation from April here.

Big thanks to our sponsors:

Civic Shout. Learn more about the great work they’re doing to help Democratic campaigns and progressive nonprofits build their lists ethically at civicshout.com/partners.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated and has not been copy-edited. While it can serve as a helpful guide to our conversation, it may contain errors or omissions. For the most accurate representation, we recommend listening to (or watching) the full episode.

Josh Klemons: Kat Abughazaleh is running for Congress in Illinois’s 9th district. I personally think she’s running one of the most innovative campaigns of the cycle, both from a digital and from a field perspective. Listeners might remember Cat joined us back in April to talk about what it means to run a blue sky first campaign. I’m super excited to have her back on the pod today to talk about how her campaign is navigating navigating the internet, fascism, and so much more. So, first things first, Cat, thanks so much for coming on. Uh, let’s start with some rather unfortunate viral moments you’ve had recently, uh, standing up to and being treated so horrifically by them. Are you doing okay both physically and in general?
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah, I mean I’m doing fine. The video that everyone seemed to have seen everywhere uh was actually the third time that Ice has specifically thrown me. Uh but I what I really want to urge people to think about is that is what they are willing to do on camera.

Kat Abughazaleh: There’s a reason we’re protesting out there and it’s because the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, where ICE headquarters operations in the Chicago area is committing crimes against humanity. They have put plywood over the windows in a place where people are only supposed to be held for 12 hours at a time, but they’re held for days or weeks without beds or hot meals or access to hygienic facilities. So like I had a bruise that went up my whole right side. in my hand was a little messed up, but in comparison to the people we’re trying to advocate for, it’s nothing.
Josh Klemons: I saw two of the um altercations. I didn’t see the third. I That’s not even the right word. Altercation. Them violently throwing you.
Kat Abughazaleh: A clash with protesters.
Josh Klemons: Right. Exactly. Um so, okay. Uh glad you’re okay. And yes, I think that is a very I think it you’ve clearly like used that as a moment. I never felt like you were making that moment about yourself.

Josh Klemons: It was always about like what is happening to the community.
Kat Abughazaleh: I’m really glad because yeah, I’m really glad because that is always something I’m very concerned and try to be cognizant about.
Josh Klemons: Um, which is not always a thing to navigate.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um like this is not about us. It’s about getting this horror show at the very least transparency and accountability.
Josh Klemons: Absolutely. Um, last time you were on the pod, you stated that you wanted every person in your district to have had their life improved by your campaign. Uh you also called on other candidates both in your primary and in general to follow that process. How’s that going both for you and uh for the other campaigns in your district and in general in your opinion?
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah, it’s been going great. you know, uh, 750,000 people is a lot, but we’re trying to improve as many lives as we can. So, we’ve done a lot of really ambitious projects that have turned out great. So, our campaign office, where I’m sitting now, I didn’t have it when we first talked, um, is a mutual aid hub.

Kat Abughazaleh: So, people can come in anytime to get clothes, food, toiletries, books, um, Narcan, COVID tests, uh, baby formula, diapers. People come in every day to get stuff here. Additionally, we’ve done events like uh we did a backpack drive where we gave out we had 500 backpacks with school supplies and gave them out to kids the day before school. So, these were kids that didn’t have a backpack that Sunday before school started. And we also had a barber shop down the street that was willing to open on a Sunday. And we had over 300 haircuts and gave out over 500 meals uh with two local businesses while also registering those kids parents to vote, which was just like a really awesome utilization of our resources. It was such a great way to connect with the community and I think it showed a lot of like the difference you can make in politics when you use your resources this way. Um I have had a lot of people that are running especially for like local and state offices that have hit me up and said you know can you help me navigate how I can work with C3s or if this idea worked for you and I really hope that this becomes the standard rather than the exception.

Josh Klemons: Um, amazing. Like I’d seen some of that stuff on social. I had not seen all I know I’m following from afar. Um, so I had not seen all of that. Yeah. I I think that’s such an it’s such a powerful way to think about it. One of the things that definitely broke through in my feed was your uh 3D printed ice whistles that you and your like team are like, you know, encouraging folks to print and hand out. Like is that just something you’re just asking folks to do it or y’all don’t have a 3D printer in the office? I assume.
Kat Abughazaleh: No, we don’t have a 3D printer, but we have lots of volunteers with 3D printers. Someone actually just dropped by yesterday with a bag of 400 3D printed whistles.
Josh Klemons: Damn, that’s amazing.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um, and they we also have volunteers that use 3D printers in a lot of cool ways. Uh, we do like bracelet making parties and you can trade your campaign bracelets with each other.

Kat Abughazaleh: Someone came in with a bunch of beads that have our campaign logo on them. Like someone made some earrings for our campaign. Like this is our little um when you open our website, what you’ll see on the tab, little icon there.
Josh Klemons: Nice. Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um, so yeah, it’s just it’s really been really cool to have so many creative volunteers and be able to use their skills uh in unique ways that you wouldn’t see on a lot of campaigns.
Josh Klemons: Yeah. Yeah. The favicon uh earring. That’s super fun.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah.
Josh Klemons: That’s awesome. Um yeah. So obviously like last time we talked about like coat drives and tampon drives. Now it’s you know 3D printed whistles and things like that, but you also talked about like knitting circles, coffee shop meet and greets. There was a lot of focus on like inperson stuff. um you live in a piece of this country that has gotten like outright scary. Has that affected the tone of the inerson meetings you’re having?

Josh Klemons: Like do you still feel safe showing up to a red or part of the district and sitting, you know, publicly letting everybody know you’re going to be there and inviting them
Kat Abughazaleh: Oh, yeah. I mean, I say that the best practice for running for Congress is covering Nazis for half a decade. Um, you know, there is risk in anything you do. We’ve seen that with a lot of political violence this year in this country. Um, but I want to make sure our campaign is accessible. Uh, we try to make sure that our events are as safe as possible, especially if we have a bigger event that we make sure that there’s security there. Um, but I want to make sure that we’re reaching everyone. And especially in the redder parts of this district, there are this district is urban, suburban, and rural. And there are a lot of people in the redder parts that they’re like, “Wow, this kind of sucks.” And maybe I’m open to a different type of candidate. maybe I don’t want to feel like flyover country in my own district.

Kat Abughazaleh: Um, one of my favorite events we did this year was our punk show and it was so much fun. We had it at this local pub and uh had three local punk bands come. Actually, one was a SCA band. They did a SCA rendition of Every Time We Touch, which I didn’t know would go so hard. Um, but I think that in-person interaction is what draws a lot of people to our campaign.
Josh Klemons: you actually talked about doing a punk concert the last time we chatted because there was like a Wisconsin punk band that had reached out. So yeah, I was really curious.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yes. And they they came and they performed. It was two that were like based here and one that was the other one.
Josh Klemons: Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: And they were the ones that gave me that idea. I forgot that I mentioned that as far back as April.
Josh Klemons: Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah.
Josh Klemons: Um yeah, I was really curious.
Kat Abughazaleh: So, we made it happen.
Josh Klemons: Um yeah, like what else you talked about like if you have a special talent like we want to hear from you.

Josh Klemons: Yeah, I was wondering and I mean you start you got to it on your own but like yeah I’m very interested in that idea of like supporting the people who are supporting you like finding ways to like let them do it in their own way. Um how many people showed up to the punk concert? Was it like at a tiny club or like like walk me through it as puncture should be right?
Kat Abughazaleh: It was full capacity, so it was like a small like local venue. Um Sam, how many people were at our punk show? 120. 120. Yeah.
Josh Klemons: Damn. Okay. Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um and uh you know, we’ve had a lot of other creative volunteers. So, we just started doing live stream fundraising instead of this thing called call time, which is like this open secret in politics. It’s how most politicians get most of their money by calling rich people all day. So, we started doing live streams instead.
Josh Klemons: Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: So, we have a lot of volunteers who love watching Twitch and they become our moderators on the stream.

Kat Abughazaleh: We have people that, you know, make spreadsheets, people that are in our creative, um, you know, circles so they can help us make graphics and stuff like that. Uh, we have translators. It’s just really cool to see all of the different talents that people can display and being able to utilize them on the campaign.
Josh Klemons: Oh yeah, amazing. And I definitely have some questions about your live streams. Um, but I do want to ask one other question about ICE. Um, I we can assume unfortunately that ICE, like this type of takeover, won’t be limited to Chicago and Portland. Um, what do you recommend other candidates do to prepare for ICE coming to their communities?
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah, you need to be showing up. You need to be showing up consistently. You need to be unafraid of ICE. If you have power or platform or privilege, you need to be using that actively to stand up to ICE. Uh, I think part of why that clip of me went so viral is because it was tiny blonde woman gets body slammed by thug in a mask.

Kat Abughazaleh: And while I appreciate the fact that it’s gotten so many eyes on this and while that is horrible, I mean, it’s such an excessive use of force. Um, it’s kind of like when I talk about being Palestinian and people listen to me more because I have fake blonde hair and real blue eyes. And uh, there are so many people with power right now that could be putting their body on the line. It makes all of us safer when they show up. Uh, the first time I went out to Broadview, there were zero elected officials. The next week there was one. And then it just kept continuing. And, you know, last week we had Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durban there. Um, So yeah, I would say show up when there’s an ICE protest, be there and be willing to provide support for your community. Like with our office, one of the things that has been really great is because it’s open to anyone except ICE. We have a lot of immigrants come in because they don’t feel safe getting resources in a lot of places.

Kat Abughazaleh: Um, and making sure that you use uh like if you’re out campaigning, give out ice whistles, have know your rights flyers, uh, work with organizations that are protecting the community right now.
Josh Klemons: Yeah. No. Uh open to anyone, but Ice is a is a nice sign for the front of the door as well. Um so, okay, so talk digital. Um first off, um you’ve raised over a million and a half dollars with an average donation of $32. And from what I see, just again, totally outside. It definitely feels like you’re doing something. You’re doing this in your own way for sure. This is not a cookie cutter campaign by any stretch of the imagination, uh, you’re currently in the middle of a four-week trial. Correct me if I’m wrong. Um, about the Twitch live streams, and they seem to be going very well. I saw like one of your roundups talking about how much you’re raising. So, how how did that start, and what do you find works best for those?

Josh Klemons: Let’s start there.
Kat Abughazaleh: So, we’ve actually kind of struggled with this because usually a campaign when it’s set up, it starts with like a calltime manager or a finance team, not even a campaign manager.
Josh Klemons: All right.
Kat Abughazaleh: But because we’re so untraditional, not just how when we raise money, but also how we spend it, uh it’s been harder to find uh people whose values or even vision align with that idea.
Josh Klemons: Interesting.
Kat Abughazaleh: Uh but one of the certainties in politics is call time. If you run for office, the first thing you will be asked is how many people can you call on day one to ask for a maximum donation. It doesn’t matter what office you’re running for. That is the first question you will be asked by the people helping you set up campaign infrastructure. But it doesn’t stop then. Our elected officials and candidates spend hours, like not just one or two, sometimes four, five, six hours a day just sitting in a room and dialing for dollars. And it plays into uh what we know about politics is that it’s inaccessible in this country for people who aren’t rich to be able to run.

Kat Abughazaleh: And if you know more rich people, if you have those connections, you’re more successful with it. And so a lot of people, most candidates hate doing it. No one enjoys this. And they’ll ask, you know, why do we have to do this? And the answer is always the same. It’s what you have to do. There’s no way to run a campaign without it. And I don’t like that answer. So, I did try it. We tried doing it in more of like a a grassrootsy way. We would call some of our donors and say, you know, hey, uh this is first and foremost, let’s update you on the campaign. Like that’s our top priority. And then if you are able, x amount could pay for y donation. People are usually happy to donate again. And it’s really lovely talking with them, but you’re spending people don’t answer the phone for random numbers anymore. You’re spending so much time leaving voicemails, uh just sitting in a room.

Kat Abughazaleh: And I’m like, we could be spending this time connecting with constituents or even donors in a unique way or I could be playing video games or taking a nap or whatever it may be. And that’s also another thing is when I have downtime, I’m always thinking about the campaign. Like there’s no real way to de-stress. And so I just had this idea, what if we found a way to incorporate live streams and make it more of a game, made it more interactive. We’re talking with people in real time, answering people’s questions in real time, and I get to do things I enjoy. talk to people I like and um it’s been really fun. It’s been a blast and I am so excited to see uh what the future has in store on that.
Josh Klemons: Um, did you already have a Twitch following when you started this or did you move folks along with you as you like launched this?
Kat Abughazaleh: I had like 2K people on Twitch. Uh I was shopping around um like a show earlier this year called Culture War Games where I would update people on like the dumb culture war b******* of the week.

Kat Abughazaleh: And like our first episode we our guest was Elizabeth Warren. Um which was yeah it was a Jean Park and Elizabeth Warren.
Josh Klemons: Okay. Quite a first guest.
Kat Abughazaleh: And so I was doing that for like the first two months of the year and then I decided to run for Congress and so that got put on the back burner as I was building this following. But uh yeah it’s been growing each week and we stream on both Twitch and YouTube.
Josh Klemons: And you’re raising like it seemed like about $5 to $8,000 for each live stream. Is that accurate?
Kat Abughazaleh: I’d say it’s probably like three 2.5 to 8,000. It just depends. Definitely with small dollar donations like 2.53 of just like having fun in these trial things as we’re figuring things out.
Josh Klemons: Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: Some people drop bigger donations which is so kind and nice but it’s always nice to know that we have a bunch of grassroots people that want to contribute.
Josh Klemons: Better than And are you finding so first of all like how much has your Twitch grown?

Josh Klemons: Like you said you started it too. Are you like 10x that or you just like still like and are you finding it’s the same folks like tuning in and donating or are you bringing in new folks for like each of these?
Kat Abughazaleh: Um I don’t think I’m 10x that. I think we’re at like 4K 5K. Let me see. So, we’re at 6.5K on Twitch. Um, so it’s both it’s a mix. So, like sometimes we’ll be uh like my producer Asha, she will tell me uh someone’s name and I’m like, “Oh, I know that name.” Like one is Lisbon M and uh they chip in like 10 bucks on a stream and I’m like, “Oh, great to see you again.”
Josh Klemons: Come Fine.
Kat Abughazaleh: But there are lots of people who are new and especially as we have guests. Last night we had Amir Talai uh who is um one of the voices on the TV show Hasbin Hotel and a lot of his fans came on and that was super fun. Uh and so we’re just trying to grow our audience and really like stress and show by example that talking without a script will always be received better by voters than running every message through five different focus groups.

Kat Abughazaleh: Um, like playing Hades 2 is a lot more interactive than like a webinar for five rich people.
Josh Klemons: Um I I’ve been working on this one campaign for years and years and I’ve been running their email program and every email we send there’s this one person who gives a dollar on every email and I love them
Kat Abughazaleh: Oh.
Josh Klemons: so much because it’s just like you know like it adds up but also it’s just like obviously they like the email that moved them and yeah it’s nice to those same like folks showing up again and again even if like they they’re not in a position to max out like whatever like that’s awesome you know so no I love that so yeah I am curious like what are you finding works best is it video games is
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah.
Josh Klemons: it chatting with your team is it playing with the cat like what like with your cat not you you with your cat what is it that like you think moves the needle as far as like engagement or it’s it’s across the board

Kat Abughazaleh: I think it’s all engaging. Like the audience stays pretty consistent and grows pretty consistently. I think in terms of money, uh, it’s more effective when like I’m just playing games because I have more time to be like, “Hey, rememberino.comstream,” which is our stream link, um, or donation link, and when I’m talking with
Josh Klemons: All right.
Kat Abughazaleh: someone that’s like I’m not interrupting the conversation to be like, “Donate,” or, uh, reminding people what the link is. Um, but like the engagement is great in all parts of it. And I’m really, really, really, really excited to see what we’re going to do after this last week of the trial.
Josh Klemons: Um, do you think that this is something that could be replicated outside of Twitch or is this a Twitch specific type of um program?
Kat Abughazaleh: So, I uh do it on Twitch and YouTube and uh I already have a big audience on YouTube uh and I know some people don’t want to download Twitch or they’re not familiar with it and so I try
Josh Klemons: Okay.
Kat Abughazaleh: to just make it as accessible as possible.

Kat Abughazaleh: So, I think it can be replicated. The big thing is you have to follow FEC guidelines. So, all of my platforms are demonetized. um you people donate through our act blue link uh which makes sure that we’re following all FEC protocol um and I think that it can be replicated. You know, I had someone say that like this strategy probably works best if you’re like Cat Aba Gazale. And I think right now that’s kind of true because we’re trying something totally new. Like you’ve had some uh especially progressives play video games online and do stuff like that, but we are doing this as like a primary form of fundraising. Uh which is something that has never been done at this scale in politics. And uh so yeah, I mean I’m trying to we did a 12-hour live stream through the entire district which was uh very fun, kind of a technical s*** show, very much a case study in why uh we need better internet access across the country. Um but it was a lot of fun and we got to showcase a lot of local businesses and when I got frustrated with all the technical difficulties, I saw on the chat people were like, “Wait, no, this is really cool.

Kat Abughazaleh: It’s authentic.” And I remembered like, oh, no one’s done this before. And so, we’re kind of the guinea pigs. We’re our own guinea pigs. And hopefully we get the hang of it and we do better and we have fun while we’re doing it. And then this can be a way for other grassroots campaigns to break through.
Josh Klemons: And when you say across the district, like you were on mobile, like moving from place to place on Nice.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah. So, we had uh at that point I was still using StreamYard where we had my whole PC setup um probably would cost around 4K if we bought it, but volunteers donated. We only had to pay 90 bucks for a monitor stand um which is so sick.
Josh Klemons: Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: But for that one, when I was on Streamyard, we were basically doing everything just through the internet.
Josh Klemons: Hell yeah. Okay.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um not Ethernet. And so we had my phone with a uh a lav mic in it and then a laptop out at all times that we were just like rushing to plug in at any business we went into to make sure that like it didn’t run out of battery.

Kat Abughazaleh: And then sometimes like just sell service wouldn’t be there or even with hotspots like everyone had a different hotspot and it just wouldn’t work. Um, and that was fine because we had our uh we had Asha who at that point was our interimm research director and she would just hop on and be like, “Hey chat, I’m back. Right now we’re uh you know in a rural area and can’t keep up the stream.” Yeah.
Josh Klemons: Um I don’t I I don’t know if you know Twitch started as Justin TV, right? Like a guy literally just strapping a phone to himself that or a camera before like mobile devices. So yeah, back to the roots of Twitch.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah.
Josh Klemons: I love it. Um and right now you are working towards you’re doing like a a challenge, right? Right? Like if you raise a certain amount of money, you’re going to do a 24-hour live stream.
Kat Abughazaleh: Uh that that’s very much a casual challenge. Uh at chat was like, can we get a 24-hour live stream?

Josh Klemons: Okay.
Kat Abughazaleh: And raising 100K in four weeks uh in like our first four weeks of this, I felt like if they somehow reached that, that would be very very impressive and cool, but also um enough to get a 24-hour live stream and not a scent less. I’m really hoping for $99,999.
Josh Klemons: Got it. That seems like a win-win. Yeah. Um, okay. So, I am loving your email program. Uh, I even shared a screenshot of one of your emails on my LinkedIn, which I don’t do lightly. Um, it was written by your cat. Um, and I I talked about the fact that I’ve written I’ve read a lot of emails written by dogs. I’ve even written some, but yours was literally written by your cat. Um, and um, so few campaigns sound different in my inbox, and I am like an email nerd. like I read all of this stuff and like everything just kind of like feels flat and the same and yours really doesn’t. Um, can you talk to me about your email process?

Josh Klemons: Like how involved are you day-to-day? Are you just like greenlighting stuff? Are you like actually involved in the process? And like how how is that ideation happening? Because it really does feel separate from your social program in a pretty powerful way. So I’m just I’d love to hear like how you’re thinking about email separately from all your social channels.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah. Yeah. So, we work with Goodman campaigns and they’re really cool because they uh they’re down to do stuff that like doesn’t really provide them a financial incentive but is new in, you know, the political sphere. So, we have sent out emails that don’t even include a donation link. Like, when you donate to us, we send you a picture of my cat and then give you unsubscribe options.
Josh Klemons: Mhm.
Kat Abughazaleh: Like, you can receive fewer texts or none at all. Uh, and when you unsubscribe from us, we actually take you off our subscription list. Um, if your email is under like a dead name, you can email us.

Kat Abughazaleh: it will be fixed like that. Um, and it’s just uh they’re down to try a lot of fun stuff. So, the heater one, which is my cat, um, we had been wanting to do it for a while, but she’s very polite, so I had to wait until I could get a good picture of her on my laptop, and then when she walked across my laptop, she accidentally activated all that text on there, and I was like, “Oh, perfect.”
Josh Klemons: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Kat Abughazaleh: Uh, and so we just did like a keyboard smash, and it was like, “Yes, a cat wrote this email.” And uh we had a lot of donations from it.
Josh Klemons: I Yeah, it was a great email. Like I said, I screenshot and shared it online, which I don’t do lightly.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah.
Josh Klemons: Hell yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um and I I approve our emails.
Josh Klemons: Hell yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: So for all of our emails, a lot of them um especially as like we’ve grown on the campaign and like Jacob’s learned my voice really well.

Kat Abughazaleh: We’ve uh a lot of them I barely have to edit anymore. Some of them I edit more uh sometimes when we have our calls and I’m like, “Hey, I think this would be a fun idea.” But a lot of them come from uh the people we work with on emails. are great and I love that they see the vision we have and they’re like, “Hey, maybe this is a way forward. It’s not just about spamming people being like, “Hi, James Carville here.” But, you know, towards the end of the quarter, we send out some more, but we’re trying to be really honest and transparent about like kind of both b******* and not b******* impact of end of quarter deadlines because like it’s stupid that this is how so many judge the viability of a campaign. At the same time, we’re trying to be a viable campaign and we want union endorsements and things like that. So, we try to be really transparent about it, but we actually have people telling us to text them more that they like our emails so much.

Kat Abughazaleh: My campaign manager has had people call us and be like, “I really liked this email,” which I don’t think you hear a lot with political campaigns.
Josh Klemons: Well, I’m So, I I got about an email a day from you for like the end of quarter and then I don’t think I’ve gotten one since, which you said was going to happen, right? you said this will be our last email before or maybe you did like one wrap-up like right after and then it went quiet. I’ll also share that Jacob from Goodman Strategies was the first guest on this podcast. So big fan of his.
Kat Abughazaleh: Oh, no way. Yeah, Jacob is awesome. Yeah, Jacob’s really great.
Josh Klemons: Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: We were trying to find because like at when we were starting our campaign, I was uh Yeah, I was the only non-incumbent candidate. We weren’t sure if the incumbent was going to run again, but that means that a lot of places won’t just won’t work with you. Um, and when I was talking to Jacob, like we had talked to some other people and they were like kind of wishy-washy or uh gave this idea of, you know, flooding the zone like we see with a lot of Democratic strategists that kind of take the wrong lesson from things like Obama’s email and text campaign.

Kat Abughazaleh: Um, and when I was talking to Jacob, he just like had he got it.
Josh Klemons: Yeah. No, like I said, when I when I decided to do this podcast, he was the first person I invited on. Uh he had just wrapped the Janet Proitz race in Wisconsin through Goodman. I mean, they were an outside vendor, but just did phen loved the Janet email list.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah.
Josh Klemons: I thought it felt very fresh. So it does surprise me that he’s involved in also helping with your program because uh it sounds like you not like him but like it sounds different and that is what I I would think nothing less. Um so on that note of like voice on our last conversation you mentioned that you were running all of your own social I think.
Kat Abughazaleh: Or
Josh Klemons: Um so but there’s so much social like I was looking to you know like I follow your stuff casually or you know whatever I see it in my feed but you know preparing for this convo I was like going through and there’s so much of it.

Josh Klemons: Are you still managing all of it yourself or is your has your digital team grown? Are you leaning on volunteers? Like, you know, you don’t need to get like granular here. I don’t need to know like who’s on your team specifically. I’m just curious like is this still a like the one cat show or are you like working with other folks to make all this output happen?
Kat Abughazaleh: So, the vast majority of my socials is me posting it. Um, but one of the most incredible additions to this team is Mia, who is our creative director, and they are unbelievable.
Josh Klemons: Okay. Nice.
Kat Abughazaleh: It it for years I have wanted someone to free me from the body dysmorphia of editing your own face for hours on end, but it is a very I know it sounds kind of corny, but it’s very vulnerable to send like a bunch of raw footage of yourself to someone and then also trust that they’ll make the product you want.
Josh Klemons: Mhm.
Kat Abughazaleh: And I found that in Mia, uh, they make some of the coolest, most creative ideas.

Josh Klemons: Hell yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: Uh, some of our posters like we have just it’s so different and they get it and they’re really great about hearing your vision for something and actually making it a reality. And so most of like s*** posting is me. Uh, my campaign manager is Sam. Like if we have to whip up a statement on the fly, uh, he’ll draft something up. And just like with Jacob, very like I usually edit it very little uh because he has to spend a billion hours with me and knows how I talk.
Josh Klemons: Clear.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um but yeah, for the most part it is me and we’re all very like I’m very involved in that process. We did get finally a platform to post across platforms. Um we use Sendable because that was always like a huge time suck of like you have to have a thumbnail for this, you have to have a caption for that. And so having that in like one place has been really nice. Um but yeah, so it’s mainly me and Mia.

Josh Klemons: Uh folks who know me know that I’m obsessed with Publer, which is like my version of Sendable. Like I use it. I don’t think I could survive in social. Like if I had to I mean I have one candidate who I’m regularly posting to as many as eight different places for with content. It’s like it’s just not sustainable to be able to like do that. um natively or even you know Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah.
Josh Klemons: So yeah, exactly.
Kat Abughazaleh: Especially because every platform tries to screw you over so that way you’ll be stuck with that platform. So you have like a bunch of different aspect ratios and like you know character limits.
Josh Klemons: Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: It’s a nightmare.
Josh Klemons: Yeah. No, totally. Um in our last chat you talked about a campaign Discord and it was sort of just like a casual mention, but I was curious um how that’s going. Are you using that for organizing, fundraising, both? Um where are you how are you growing that and how is it helping y’all move the needle?

Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah, it’s been going great. Let me see if I can get an updated number for our volunteers on Discord. Um of downloading update one of one stupid. Um, no, but the Discord’s going great. It’s been a fantastic way to mobilize volunteers, especially for those more creative roles like I was talking about. Um, we have over 3,200 people in there now.
Josh Klemons: Oh, nice.
Kat Abughazaleh: Uh, and we’re actually about to do a relaunch of it. um I believe this weekend with um a lot of new um a lot let me see the total number with like some new organization and leader 3600 we’re at 3600 people in our discord and it’s great because it
Josh Klemons: Wow.
Kat Abughazaleh: works like magic and it’s a really fun way to keep people involved in the campaign. And I’ve learned that we have like kind of this subculture of volunteers who are friends with each other and like organize s***. And it’s so cool, especially cuz like I can’t get to hang out with 3600 people every day, but at least I get to hear from a lot of them.
Josh Klemons: Sure.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um the uh one example I always give is we did this standup show at the Laugh Factory for the campaign and I had a PowerPoint presentation for what was supposed to be an 18-minute set and I did not account for an audience. So, it ended up being a half hour, but the slideshow was integral and their projector broke. Their AC also broke, but that’s unrelated.
Josh Klemons: Oh yeah, sir.
Kat Abughazaleh: It just made me surprised that people stayed the whole time because it was hot as hell. And so, we were panicking and we messaged in the Discord, could someone please, does anyone have a projector we can borrow? We had one there in 15 minutes. It was straight up like magic.
Josh Klemons: Wow. Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: It’s so cool. Our volunteers are the best. Um, we had someone, you know, paint our window sign. Uh, like I don’t know. I just I’m so grateful for our volunteers. We have the coolest freaking campaign.
Josh Klemons: That’s amazing.

Josh Klemons: Um, so last time we chatted it was like the the question that I asked you was, you know, what does it mean to run a blue sky first campaign? So I guess my first question is like, do you still consider yourself do you still consider this a blue sky first campaign digitally?
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Josh Klemons: Okay, that’s where you’re hanging.
Kat Abughazaleh: I mean, that’s if I’m just like s*** posting or like posting in general, I always post first on Blue Sky. Um, you know, Twitter is a cesspool.
Josh Klemons: Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: And then the DHS started quote tweeting me and I was like, I don’t know if I want to be here.
Josh Klemons: Did they not miss that?
Kat Abughazaleh: So, I’m still Yeah, I’m I’m still considering uh my options there of even engaging with a platform where I see like Holocaust denial.
Josh Klemons: Jesus. Good lord.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um, but Blue Sky is still doing a great job of moderation, still transparent. Um, you know, I hear a lot of especially like centrist consultants that complain about Blue Sky because they’re like, “You can’t get money out of it or people are mean to me because they think we should throw trans people under the bus.

Kat Abughazaleh: Blue Sky is our most successful site fundraising wise out of every social media.
Josh Klemons: Interesting.
Kat Abughazaleh: Blue Sky is our most successful one.” And that’s just me like putting a donation link under tweets that go off or posts that go off skis.
Josh Klemons: Sure. Yeah, sure.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um and uh yeah, so I really just think it’s a skill issue.
Josh Klemons: Well, I was going to ask like do you have any advice for candidates struggling to build an audience there? because I feel like there was definitely a moment uh right like right after the election like everybody was excited about it. Rachel Mata was pushing her people there and then it sort of feels like it plateaued in the zeitgeist. Um but I mean I look at your feed and you’ve got tens of thousands of li you’ve you’ve got the type of engagement on blue sky that a lot of candidates are struggling to find these days on Twitter but once upon a time could like but I don’t see a lot of campaigns popping off on blue sky.
Josh Klemons: So yeah, I’m just curious like any advice for like is it just post more and better content or is there like is is there any advice you can offer right for anything?
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah, I mean like posting better content would probably be good advice for anything. Uh I think a lot of it’s like authenticity though. Um, that’s one thing that has resonated with my work since before I ran for office.
Josh Klemons: Okay,
Kat Abughazaleh: And it’s not something I try to do. I just communicate how I would want to be communicated too. Um, and that makes the world a lot better in general, I think. Um, I think when people complain about Blue Sky too much, it’s because they haven’t spent more than like 5 minutes on the platform, so they haven’t like followed people they like or created feeds. Um, or in some cases it’s just straight up bigotry. Like people will complain about blue sky. They’re like they don’t like free speech and then they’ll just continually dead name someone or like be like I don’t know Elon Musk might have an idea with this eugenics stuff.

Josh Klemons: Right.
Kat Abughazaleh: And it’s like my guy.
Josh Klemons: Right.
Kat Abughazaleh: And I think part of it is people have said that I’ve had people describe it as like a um echo chamber. I don’t think that’s true. I think we’ve had the window shift so much on what we consider normal that we’re like, “Oh, the normal is when you have uh boosted accounts constantly posting white supremacist b*******.” And the like lefty one is when people aren’t doing that. And I personally don’t want that to be reality.
Josh Klemons: No. Hell yeah. Um, so, okay. Uh, there are a lot of c there are not a lot of campaigns that are nailing YouTube. Like, I don’t see even statewide races. Like, I don’t really see anybody doing YouTube well from a campaign perspective. Plenty of like, um, progressive, you know, influencers and news creators, content creators. U, but I don’t see any really campaigns on there. But you’ve got 130,000 subscribers on YouTube and a ton of engagement. Do you have a different strategy for Tik Tok uh for YouTube than you do for Tik Tok or Instagram?

Josh Klemons: Like do you approach long form video differently from media matters and and after All right.
Kat Abughazaleh: Um, I basically just keep doing the work I used to do um like yeah I mean when I was at Media Matters I was actually making those videos in my personal time. Um Mia, our creative director actually watched my work before I ran for office and they were like, “Oh my god, she’s running in the district I grew up in.”
Josh Klemons: All right.
Kat Abughazaleh: And uh I like it’s I’ve been trying to figure out both the cadence of being a candidate and creating content and creating content that I like doing. And I feel really at home in terms of like explainer communication. And so Mia had this great idea for Labor Day of instead of just, you know, showing up to a Labor Day parade and being like that’s it, you know, I used to be a union rep. I think labor history is some of the most interesting and vital history in our country and center of a lot of it was in Chicago.

Kat Abughazaleh: Um what if we went to, you know, Hey Market Square and talked about what happened there? What if we go to where the Pullman massacre occurred and talk about that? And then in between those, I’m giving the historical context at my desk, like one of my more traditional videos.
Josh Klemons: Mhm.
Kat Abughazaleh: And that was so much fun to make. although I know me I had to edit until like 4:00 a.m. Um, but it was so much fun to make and really resonated with people and was something we could put across platforms. And so that’s the uh that’s been something that I really enjoyed doing, not just like as a candidate, but as me. Um, I think part of the thing with YouTube is you can’t just like post some glossy ad. Like if you want if you’re trying to communicate something, what are you trying to communicate?
Josh Klemons: Yeah, no, super helpful. Um, any thoughts on the uh shutdown and how Democrats are handling it?
Kat Abughazaleh: H it’s taken so much to get here. And I think one of I think there are a lot of steps that we could have taken to avoid this or possibly not be in the situation we are right now where ICE has assumingly unlimited budget while you know federal workers aren’t being paid while people can’t get access to basic services.

Kat Abughazaleh: Um what I would really like to see is more Democrats using their resources to help people right now to fill in the material gaps that Trump has created. Uh, I think it’s the right thing to do and I also think it is the most persuasive thing to do if you want to uh flip either chamber in 2026 um and make a serious cultural impact.
Josh Klemons: Um, I’ll have links to all your channels in the show notes, but if folks are only going to connect with you on one spot, should it be Blue Sky, email, something else?
Kat Abughazaleh: Uh, catforillinois.com. That’s cat with a K. Uh, if you go on there, this is kind of a cheat answer because if you go on there, you’ll find all of my socials right on the homepage.
Josh Klemons: That’s fair. That’s good. Yeah.
Kat Abughazaleh: So cafferillino.com k a t fo rillinois.com my cat Ben amazing staff are awesome volunteers.
Josh Klemons: Um, and then you’ve clearly built a campaign around hope and community. Like that’s clear in a time that feels increasingly authoritarian.

Josh Klemons: Anything else that we haven’t talked about that keeps you going? Cool.
Kat Abughazaleh: I think well like at my core I’m just I’m an optimistic person. I don’t think that this is forever. I think fascism is antithetical to the human condition and that it will one day anger and pain outweigh the fear, but we need to make sure the fewest number of people get hurt in the meantime. And so when people talk about joys and active resistance, that is absolutely true. And that’s not just burying your head in the sand because things get overwhelming. It’s um coming together with your community. It is building things with your community. It is being physically present. uh and it is standing strong in your values and that’s what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to nurture and I hope more of our leaders do the same.
Josh Klemons: Hell yeah. Uh thanks so much for coming back on and uh sharing some of your wisdom and your story. Uh super super ex like I said, I’ve been following the campaign from afar, so it’s nice to get to like hop in here and have you like pull back the curtain and tell us what’s going on. Really appreciate your time.
Kat Abughazaleh: Yeah. Thank you so much Josh. It’s a pleasure.
Josh Klemons: Yeah. Um cool. Thank you.