The gamesmanship and guilt-by-association tactics that are defining this election cycle jumped the shark with the news last week that an Illinois House member from Chicago sent mailers to constituents accusing his progressive challenger of wanting to “expand ICE in our community.” The attack on challenger Miguel Alvelo-Rivera by 40th District state Rep. Jaime Andrade’s campaign on its face made little sense, as Alvelo-Rivera is endorsed by the most passionate anti-ICE politicians in our area, including Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez and U.S. Rep. Delia Ramirez. But Andrade defended the accusation by saying that it was based on donations to Alvelo-Rivera from other politicians (including Ramirez) who support him, some of whom in turn had received modest donations from out-of-state moderate Democratic politicians who voted last year for Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding. Got that? That is about as tenuous and convoluted as such an attack can get. No one with any knowledge of Chicago politics can believe that Alvelo-Rivera, a product of what Andrade calls the Democratic socialist “machine” in his part of the city, is an ICE supporter. For his part, Andrade effectively is defending these highly misleading mailers as normal hardball political tactics that have been employed by the same Democratic socialists in other races in the neighborhoods he represents, including Avondale, Albany Park and Irving Park. He’s correct there. But that doesn’t make what he’s doing right. And we say that knowing we endorsed Andrade in the primary. For the record, we still stand by that endorsement. If with a little less enthusiasm. This bare-knuckled example shines a light on the distressing trend that has come to dominate this primary season for Democrats, a particularly intense one given the unusually large number of open seats for Congress and for other offices. Discussions of candidates’ qualifications and positions on issues have been eclipsed by near-constant focus on who’s donating to their campaigns. It’s not just the candidates who are at fault here. Questions at debates and forums have tended to overemphasize who’s giving what to whom over other important matters in this election. Much of the back-and-forth has centered on AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and its multimillion-dollar bets via various super political action committees on several Democrats running for open congressional seats. To read some of the coverage of these races, you’d think that what’s happening in the Middle East is far and away the most important issue on voters’ minds. Its devastating human costs notwithstanding, one can read any poll and conclude that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far down the list of Americans’ priorities in this election. Scott Stantis editorial cartoon for Sunday, March 1, 2026 on campaign financing critique in the 2026 primary elections. (Scott Stantis/For the Chicago Tribune) There are any number of reasons for leftist rivals to moderate Democrats such as Laura Fine and Donna Miller (running for Congress in the 9th and 2nd districts, respectively) to attack them over the identity of their donors. One, we’re certain, is to define them as something they’re clearly not — cloaked backers of some sort of Trumpian agenda. We get that politics ain’t beanbag and all that, but the idea that these veteran politicians, who’ve amassed records most anyone outside of the blue bubble of Chicagoland would describe as distinctly liberal, are right-wingers in disguise is a disservice to all voters. All Democrats running in these hotly contested races ought to stipulate that everyone on the ballot is an actual, real Democrat. To say otherwise is simply to distract and obfuscate. Having conducted endorsement meetings with many of these candidates and collected questionnaires from most of the remainder, we can safely assure voters that virtually no one running as a Democrat in this primary season approves of how ICE agents are conducting themselves or supports continuing to fund ICE in its present state. Likewise, all these Democrats are harshly critical of this second iteration of the Trump administration and oppose the vast majority of its policies. Much more pertinent, we believe, to Democratic voters’ choices are candidates’ positions on issues such as nationalized health care; a national minimum wage of $17, $25 an hour or more; taxes on the wealthy and how to structure those; and what to do about data centers and their impact on energy costs. We could go on. Yet we see a paucity of discussion on those topics about which voters have said in poll after poll they’re most concerned. Campaign finance is a legitimate issue. By all means, those who choose to accept money from AIPAC (or from other deep-pocketed donors such as the crypto and AI industries) should have to explain why they’re doing so and also how they feel about issues pertaining to those special interests. But, with less than three weeks until Election Day, we’re not satisfied with the relentless jousting over cartoonish talking points and guilt by association. And we don’t think voters should be satisfied, either. Candidates, we’ve met many of you. We admire most of you. You can do better. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected]. ...read more read less