Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who won all 50 wards in her 2019 victory, was defeated in her re-election bid on Tuesday. The Associated Press reported Tuesday night that Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson had qualified for the April runoff election. Ms. Lightfoot declared the contest over just before nine o’clock.
Ms. Lightfoot finished third out of nine candidates for mayor. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the top two vote-getters advance to a runoff election on April 4. Ms. Lightfoot, 60, faced a crowded field of opponents, including candidates from her political left and right, after taking on the teachers union, a pandemic, and urban crime.
Mr. Vallas, a former public school executive, Mr. Johnson, a Chicago County commissioner, and Jess “Chuy” Garcia, a member of the United States Congress at the time, were her main opponents. Mr. Garcia was in fourth place on Tuesday night.
Mr. Vallas, a 69-year-old descendant of Greek immigrants, served in the state senate before joining the administration of veteran Mayor Richard M. Daley, where he oversaw Chicago’s public schools before moving on to oversee institutions in other major cities. He ran on a tough-on-crime platform, claiming the vast political territory to Ms. Lightfoot’s right. The Chicago police union, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, backs him up.
Mr. Johnson, 46, is the son of a pastor and one of ten siblings. While teaching in a public school, the African-American candidate worked as an organizer for the powerful Chicago Teachers Union. The union, which has been at odds with Ms. Lightfoot over contractual issues and concerns about returning to the classroom during the pandemic for the past few years, has endorsed Mr. Johnson and opposes her. Mr. Johnson supported a law that prohibited housing discrimination against people who had served time in prison after being elected as a county commissioner in 2018.
Prior to entering national politics, Mr. Garca, 66, ran an unsuccessful mayoral campaign against Rahm Emanuel in 2015. He was elected to Congress in 2018 and has served since then, having always embraced his Mexican-American roots and supported progressive causes. He decided to run for mayor after being re-elected to the US House in November.
Ms. Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, won all 50 wards in the 2019 election, making her the city’s first openly Black, female, and gay mayor. However, the epidemic, labor disputes, rising crime rates in the city, and other factors have harmed her popularity. One of her main points this election season has been that the epidemic was just one of many challenges she faced as mayor and that the city would benefit more from stability than yet another change at the top.
With Mr. Vallas promising to put an end to the city’s violence, crime has emerged as one of, if not the main issues in the campaign.
