Chicago Mayor Lightfoot taking on 8 rivals in re-election bid
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is fighting for reelection Tuesday after a history-making but tumultuous four years in office and a bruising campaign threaten to make her the city’s first one-term mayor in decades.
Lightfoot in 2019 became the first Black woman and first openly gay mayor of the third- largest U. S. city, and only the second woman to hold the office. But Lightfoot, a former prosecutor and head of a city police review board, now faces serious challenges from multiple candidates, who have hammered her over crime that spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic and a leadership style they say is unnecessarily combative.
With none of the nine candidates likely to receive over 50% of the vote, the race is expected to move to an April runoff between the top two vote-getters. Lightfoot may not be among them.
Lightfoot has touted her record of investing in neighborhoods and supporting workers, such as by increasing the mini
mum wage to $15 an hour. She also notes that the city has navigated unprecedented challenges such as the pandemic and its economic and public safety fallout to protests over policing.
“The world is very different than it was four years ago. I believe that I’m still the right person and I think the voters will validate that, but we’ve been through a lot,” Lightfoot said after a rally on the city’s west side during the final days before the election. “We can’t go back.”
Lightfoot’s top rivals
include Paul Vallas, who has run as the law- andorder candidate with support from the city’s police union and promises to put hundreds more officers on the streets, and U. S. Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who forced then-mayor Rahm Emanuel to a runoff in 2015. Brandon Johnson is endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, a group that has tangled with Lightfoot, including during an 11-day teachers strike in her first year in office.
If Lightfoot loses Tuesday, she would be one of the few big- city mayors in recent history to lose a reelection bid. That’s particularly true in the first round of voting, when incumbents generally enjoy an advantage. But this election is unique because of the 10 largest U.S. cities, Chicago is the only place without mayoral term limits, which may make voters in other cities more willing to give an incumbent one more term.
Lightfoot also is the first mayor of a major U.S. city to face reelection following the pandemic, the recession and the crime wave that’s occurred in many places. Those factors weighed on some voters as they made their decisions Tuesday.
“Lori has had her chance,” said Lonnell Jolly, a 45-year-old customer service representative who lives on the West Side and voted for businessman Willie Wilson. “Since Lori Lightfoot has been in office, it seems like crime has gotten worse.”
Lindsey Hegarty, a 30-year- old paralegal who lives on Chicago’s North Side, said she backed Johnson because “he seemed like the most progressive candidate on issues like policing, mental health” and public transit.