Daniel Biss

Daniel Biss has been the mayor of Evanston, Illinois, since 2021.¹ He previously served in the Illinois State Senate from 2013 to 2019 and in the Illinois House of Representatives from 2011 to 2013.¹ Before entering politics, he was a mathematics professor at the University of Chicago.¹

Biss supports Medicare for All and has proposed lowering the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55 as a first step.² He has called for abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as it currently exists.³ At a candidate debate, he called for stronger enforcement of antitrust laws to reduce the power of large corporations to raise prices and cut wages.² He favors a moratorium on new data centers, partly to slow the growth of artificial intelligence, which he considers a serious threat.² He supports a two-state solution and has called for the U.S. to enact the Block the Bombs Act and recognize a Palestinian state.⁴ In a candidate questionnaire, he said he would introduce legislation to mandate minimum staffing levels for federal offices that enforce disability rights.⁵

As a state legislator, Biss helped create Secure Choice, a retirement savings program, and passed legislation that led to a ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youth.⁶ His campaign says that as mayor, he helped create the Crisis Alternative Response Evanston program, which sends social workers and others to low-risk service calls and has answered more than 1,500 of them.⁷ His campaign says he also passed a Healthy Buildings Ordinance to curb carbon emissions.⁷