Layered PAC Money Trace · Federal · Outside spending only

Katherine M. Abughazaleh

IL-09 2026 Democratic primary · Election 2026-03-17
What this report measures: independent expenditures (IEs) reported on FEC Schedule E — money spent by outside Super PACs to support or oppose this candidate. It does not include the candidate's own campaign-committee fundraising, which is shown below for context.
$3.28M
Outside (PAC) spending — total
$0
Outside spending in support
$3.28M
Outside spending in opposition
1
Outside spending committees
For context — Katherine M. Abughazaleh's OWN campaign committee (KAT FOR ILLINOIS ↗) as of 2026-03-31:
$4.07M raised · $3.83M spent · $0 cash on hand
This own-committee total is reported separately and is not included in the outside-spending numbers above.
How to read these numbers

Outside spending is currently 80.7% of what the candidate's own committee has raised. The election was 67 days ago. Outside-spending figures shown reflect the complete cycle through final disclosure.

⚠️
AIPAC NETWORK DETECTED
2 committee match(es), 15 donor match(es)
Report ID IL_09_2026_Democratic_primary_Katherine_Abughazaleh · Generated by the federal money-trace pipeline · Depth 3, min material transfer $25,000. Every figure traceable to the official FEC API.

What this report is about

There's a race for IL-09 2026 Democratic primary. One of the candidates is Katherine M. Abughazaleh. This report tracks the outside money in the race — money spent on TV ads, mailers, and digital ads by groups that aren't Katherine M. Abughazaleh's own campaign. Those groups are called Super PACs.

Super PACs can spend unlimited money on ads, as long as they don't coordinate directly with the candidate. They have to report every dollar to the federal government — which is what makes investigations like this possible.

The headline, in everyday words

About $3,284,855 has been spent on outside ads attacking Katherine M. Abughazaleh so far. That's substantial money. We're at a historical picture — This race is over. The numbers below are final, reported as of the cycle's close.

The biggest spender is CHICAGO PROGRESSIVE PARTNERSHIP, which spent $3,284,855 — about 100% of all the outside money in this race. That group is funded by: ELECT CHICAGO WOMEN AKA ECW ($1.0M, 49%), DAVIS ($500K, 25%), SACKS ($300K, 15%). So when you see an ad attacking Katherine M. Abughazaleh, there's a real chance these donors paid for it.

The AIPAC piece

AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — a lobby group that has a Super PAC arm called UDP (United Democracy Project) known for spending huge sums to defeat candidates it considers too critical of Israel. Pro-Israel money has been a defining factor in Democratic primaries since 2022.

AIPAC-formal money is in this race. The detector found: UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ($65,132,534). These are AIPAC's own federal committees — when published findings say 'AIPAC spent X on this race,' that's what they're describing.

15 individual donors on the AIPAC mega-donor roster directly contributed to committees in this race's outside-money chain. These are public donors of record — names are in the detailed analysis tab.

The bottom line

  1. Outside money is attacking Katherine M. Abughazaleh from groups with their own funding stack.
  2. Pro-Israel money is in the race (AIPAC-formal).
  3. All of this is legal and public — every dollar in this report comes from the FEC's own filings.

The headline, in one paragraph

Outside-spending committees disclosed $3.28M in independent expenditures opposing Katherine M. Abughazaleh in the IL-09 2026 Democratic primary. 1 committee filed; the largest, CHICAGO PROGRESSIVE PARTNERSHIP, accounts for 100% of that total.

AIPAC-network check
DETECTED
$4.01M
From AIPAC-network
committees
$36.47M
From named AIPAC-aligned
individual mega-donors
$40.48M
Combined direct
AIPAC-network dollars
12
Unique roster donors
matched
Money cascade through this race
UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') → ELECT CHICAGO WOMEN AKA ECW → candidate

AIPAC-roster committees in this chain (1)

UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT
C00799031 · AIPAC-roster committee
Role(s) in this trace:
  • Layer-X recipient in trace
  • donor to ELECT CHICAGO WOMEN AKA ECW (`C00936724`) — $4.01M
AIPAC-affiliated Super PAC; formed 2021 to make federal independent expenditures. AIPAC publicly identifies UDP as its IE vehicle.
Source: FEC Form 1; AIPAC public communications; observed as Layer-2 funder in the Abughazaleh IL-09 2026 trace

Individual donors on the AIPAC roster (12)

Donor (and employer/city hints)Into this chainRecipients in the chainRoster relationship
ROWAN, MARC
APOLLO / APOLLO MGMTNEW YORK / PALM BEACH
 $12.00M $12.00M → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') Largest disclosed UDP donor in the 2026 cycle ($12,000,000); sustained UDP donor since 2022
SCHWARTZBERG, ANDREW
HOUSING / REAL ESTATE
 $6.00M $6.00M → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') $6,000,000 to UDP in 2026 cycle; multi-cycle donor
SHEAR, HERBERT
RETIRED
 $4.80M $4.80M → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') $4,800,000 to UDP in 2026 cycle
OPPER, GARY
RETIRED
 $2.70M $2.70M → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') $2,700,000 to UDP in 2026 cycle
DAVIS, ANTHONY
LINDEN CAPITALCHICAGO
 $2.00M $500,000 → CHICAGO PROGRESSIVE PARTNERSHIP; $1.50M → ELECT CHICAGO WOMEN AKA ECW $2,000,000 across the AIPAC-aligned chain (CPP $500K + ECW $1.5M) in 2026; further $7.5M to ECW separately + $2.5M to Affordable Chicago Now! (another shell). Significant cross-cycle UDP-network giving.
ROSENBERG, CHAD
TERRA
 $1.80M $1.80M → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') $1,800,000 to UDP in 2026 cycle
STORCH, DAVID
ARISE CAPITAL
 $1.80M $1.80M → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') $1,800,000 to UDP in 2026 cycle
RIKLIS, IRA
SUTHERLAND CAPITAL
 $1.50M $1.50M → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') $1,500,000 to UDP in 2026 cycle; multi-cycle donor
LEVITT, RANDALL
NELLIS
 $1.50M $1.50M → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') $1,500,000 to UDP in 2026 cycle
SACKS, MICHAEL
CHICAGO
 $1.20M $300,000 → CHICAGO PROGRESSIVE PARTNERSHIP; $900,000 → ELECT CHICAGO WOMEN AKA ECW $1,200,000 across the AIPAC-aligned chain (CPP $300K + ECW $900K) in 2026
FRANK, BLAIR
 $1.00M $1.00M → ELECT CHICAGO WOMEN AKA ECW $1,000,000 to ECW (UDP downstream IE committee) in 2026 cycle
BECKER, SCOTT
 $170,000 $120,000 → UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP'); $50,000 → ELECT CHICAGO WOMEN AKA ECW $170,000 across the AIPAC-aligned chain in 2026 (ECW $50K + UDP $120K)

Roster: skills/_shared/aipac_network.json (last updated 2026-05-23). Detector: skills/_shared/aipac_detect.py. Negative and positive findings are both auditable — running these checks against the same trace will reach the same conclusion. Match confidence on individual donors is medium (name-only); analysts should verify employer/location to rule out homonyms before publication.

Where the money flowed

Each ribbon shows a disclosed money flow. Donors and parent committees on the left → spending committees in the middle → the candidate on the right. Width is proportional to dollars.

donor → PAC transfer PAC support spending PAC opposition spending

Spending committees in this race

CHICAGO PROGRESSIVE PARTNERSHIP
FEC C00935809 ↗  ·  Super PAC (Independent Expenditure-Only)
Independent expenditures in this race
$3.28M
$0 support $3.28M oppose
TOP_PAC_FUNDER_49PCT Suggestive name Single-cycle activity
Treasurer
FOX, MICHAEL
Registered address
1016 WEST JACKSON BLVD, UNIT 1032, CHICAGO, IL, 60607
Cycles active
2026
Total receipts (2026)
$2.04M

Who funded this PAC

Committee ELECT CHICAGO WOMEN AKA ECW
$1.00M (49.1%)
Ind DAVIS, ANTHONY
$500,000 (24.6%)
Ind SACKS, MICHAEL
$300,000 (14.7%)
Ind CARLIN, GREGORY
$100,000 (4.9%)
Org PIONEER PARTNERS
$72,500 (3.6%)
Operational & media vendors
Top operational vendors (Schedule B)
VendorPaid#Category
No operational vendors.
Top media vendors (Schedule E)
VendorPaidIEsOther candidates targeted
No media vendors recorded.

Cross-level donor overlap

A donor who funds more than one committee in the same chain is a corroborating coordination signal — lawful explanations exist, but it's worth follow-up.

    Cross-cycle activity

    Committee receipts disclosed in prior election cycles — to show whether this is a long-running operation or a single-cycle vehicle.

    UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP')
    C00799031
    2022
    2024

    This is the wider-audience summary. The full analyst-grade markdown report — with every endpoint, every caveat, the request-for-comment letter drafts, the PDF review queue, the FCC scaffold, and reproducibility instructions — lives at reports/IL_09_2026_Democratic_primary_Katherine_Abughazaleh_final_report.md in the same folder.

    How to read flag badges
    • Single funder ≥80% — one source provides almost all of the committee's money. The clearest shell-PAC fingerprint.
    • Top PAC funder ≥40% — concentrated, but with at least some donor diversity.
    • PAC aggregate ≥50% — most receipts come from other PACs rather than individuals.
    • Suggestive name — committee name matches a known shell-PAC linguistic pattern (e.g. "Americans for…", "Citizens for…").
    • Few donors (≤3) — three or fewer disclosed contributors.
    • Single-cycle activity — committee was active only during one election cycle.

    One flag is suggestive, not probative. Two or more flags together is publishable analysis. Zero flags is not a clean bill of health — it just means none of these specific fingerprints fired.

    How this report is reproducible

    Every dollar figure comes from the FEC's public API. To re-run this trace end-to-end:

    export FEC_API_KEY="<your_key>"
python skills/fec-money-trace/fec_run.py \
  --candidate "Katherine M. Abughazaleh" \
  --cycle 2026 \
  --race "IL-09 2026 Democratic primary" \
  --election-date 2026-03-17 \
  --depth 3 \
  --min-transfer 25000

    Primary endpoints used: /candidates/search/, /schedules/schedule_e/ (independent expenditures), /schedules/schedule_a/ (receipts), /schedules/schedule_b/ (disbursements), /committee/{id}/ (Form 1 registration).

    Named individuals are public donors of record under federal campaign finance law and appear in primary-source FEC filings. They are listed for disclosure transparency, not as accusation. Any narrative use of these names should give each individual an opportunity to respond before publication — request-for-comment letter drafts are already produced and live in followups/comment_letters/.