Lights Out For Lightfoot

Lori Lightfoot becomes the first Chicago Mayor to lose a re-election bid in my lifetime, as she barely got 16% of the vote and failed to make an April runoff.

 

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her bid for re-election Tuesday, ending her historic run as the city’s first Black woman and first openly gay person to serve in the position.

The Democratic incumbent failed to gain enough votes in the nine-person race to move on to an April 4 runoff election, according to projections by The Associated Press.

Paul Vallas, a former superintendent of Chicago schools, will face Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union.

Ideologically, the choice between Vallas and Johnson is stark. Vallas ran as a moderate law-and-order candidate, while Johnson ran on an unabashedly progressive agenda.

But Chicagoans sent a message that they wanted change, rejecting both an incumbent mayor and a sitting congressman. Lightfoot is the first incumbent elected Chicago mayor to lose re-election since 1983.

The mayor conceded defeat Tuesday night at her party in downtown Chicago, saying, "Obviously we didn't win the election today, but I stand here with my head held high."

Lightfoot has been dogged by persistent crime in the city, which has been a top concern among Chicagoans. Crime spiked within her term, though the mayor has repeatedly touted that it dropped year-over-year in 2022.

Vallas was widely expected to emerge from the first round of voting, having built his campaign around a tough-on-crime theme and garnering support in the vote-rich northern and northwestern sides of the city. He also gained the backing of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police.

It's a bitter end to a tumultuous tenure for Lightfoot, who quickly developed an image as a national lightning rod for conservatives and repeatedly clashed with institutional interests, from the Chicago Teachers Union to the media to the police rank and file. She was at times lauded for her handling of the pandemic but saw violent riots in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of a white police officer.

Lightfoot faced long odds and was in danger of an early re-election knockout. Having lost the support she once held along Chicago’s lakeshore neighborhoods and with major labor unions working against her, Lightfoot was among seven Black candidates competing for votes among the city’s Black population. But she faced stiff competition, particularly from Johnson, who had the backing and organizational benefits of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, as well as Willie Wilson, a Black entrepreneur who had been polling ahead of Johnson.

 

Lightfoot's spiral into oblivion should be held as a warning sign to both Eric Adams in NYC and  Karen Bass in LA. What voters in America's biggest, bluest cities want is somebody who actually gets shit done, and so far both Bass and Adams are headed for the trash heap, especially Adams.

 

Lightfoot made the mistake of picking fights with everybody in Cook County, and she lost those fights substantially. To not even get 20% of the vote as an incumbent is an embarrassment.  Ross Barkan at NY Magazine sums it up:

The nonpartisan race attracted national attention because it offered the rarest of political tableaus: an incumbent mayor struggling for survival. After winning a commanding election victory four years ago on a platform of political and police reform, Lightfoot was forced to govern through crises that would break any executive: a deadly pandemic and a long summer of social unrest. Homicide rates spiked in Chicago as residents, overwhelmingly, began to worry about crime more than any other pressing issue. And Lightfoot, a former prosecutor who had never held elected office before, stumbled repeatedly as she strained to hold together the coalitions that made her mayor in the first place.

Lightfoot alienated just about every ideological faction in Chicago. The city’s second Black mayor, Lightfoot battled Johnson, a proud progressive, for support in Chicago’s pivotal African American neighborhoods. Left-leaning organizations and local leaders viewed Lightfoot with increasing skepticism, portraying her as a pro-police neoliberal like her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel. She managed to feud, almost equally, with two influential unions that hold starkly different political views: the Chicago Teachers Union, which is left-wing and backed Johnson, and the city’s police union, Fraternal Order of Police, which is headed by a proud Donald Trump supporter.

We'll see how April's runoff turns out, I hope Brandon Johnson can prevail, but I'm expecting Vallas to win. Lightfoot however, well, good riddance.

 

Any Chicagoans want to chime in, feel free.