Our Daily Show Interview! Getting to Know: Dylan Blaha- Candidate (D) for Congress IL-13
ILLINOIS – As the March 17, 2026, primary approaches, Dylan Blaha (D) is encouraging people to vote for him to represent Illinois’s 13th Congressional District.
Blaha highlighted affordability as his biggest concern. He believes in Medicare for all, and he also wants to see more affordable housing and better-paying jobs in the 13th District and beyond. He explained that he is “a fighter” who will represent constituents and help the working class.
“I want to make sure I leave this world better than I found it. I want to make sure that I leave this country and this district better than I found it,” he said. “No matter what, I will always fight for you and make sure that, at the end of the day, the families in IL-13 feel like they have somebody who has their back.”
Blaha is a “pro-peace U.S. Army veteran” who served in Afghanistan and Germany. He also worked as a cancer research scientist at the University of Illinois for four years.
He believes President Donald Trump is not doing enough to help working families, and he said the district’s incumbent, Representative Nikki Budzinski (D), “is not fighting back against what’s going on.” He said he wants to help create “an affordable America” for constituents.
“Unfortunately, Donald Trump really knows what the people want right now,” he said. “He’s speaking on a lot of populist points, but it’s disingenuous, and it’s ultimately to help his billionaire buddies, the Epstein class, and these people who have just taken advantage of us for too long.”
As part of his platform, Blaha argues against public-private partnerships and for independent media and a better education system. He wants to make healthcare jobs federal so that healthcare workers can focus on helping people instead of filling out paperwork and making a profit.
“Instead of health insurance companies that are focused on making a profit, we have federal workers who are focused on helping American citizens,” he explained. “When we talk about big government, it’s not this scary thing. It’s making sure people have guaranteed jobs with good wages and great benefits and that we don’t have private institutions that are meddling in that.”
Blaha promises to work with politicians on both sides of the aisle. He said he is interested in helping the working class and will collaborate with anyone who will help him in this fight.
He added that he isn’t afraid to “call out the Democratic Party,” and he encourages constituents to look up who their representatives receive money from because that “says a lot about who they fight for.”
“It’s anyone that’s willing to fight for the constituents, and that’s regardless of if you’re a Democrat or a Republican,” he said, adding, “I would love it if we were just bickering about small things here and there with our parties. Unfortunately, right now, human rights are on the table.”
As Blaha prepares for the March 17 primary, he urges voters to visit his official website for more information about his platform. He emphasized that he is interested in helping working class families in District 13 and beyond.
“Right now, unfortunately, the consensus is that this is not working for working people…How do we make it to where everyone has a voice in Congress, not just corporations and billionaires?” he said. “There are so many Republicans and so many Democrats that, I say time and time again, don’t represent me, so I don’t know who, in fact, they are representing. I will represent you.”
