Runoff in Chicago mayor’s race
Two black female candidates make history
CHICAGO – The two candidates vying to become mayor of the nation’s third-largest city are both transplants from elsewhere in the Midwest who are casting themselves as progressives.
They’re also no strangers to Chicago’s rough-andtumble politics.
Former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot, 56, and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, 71, finished first and second in the election to replace May- or Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday.
They advance to a runoff vote on April 2. The winner will be Chicago’s first black female mayor; Chicago will become the largest U.S. city to be led by a black woman.
The race could be a turning point for a city that’s shifting further to the left ideologically as it tries to shake a reputation for political corruption and the scourge of gun violence.
“It’s clear we’re at a defining moment in our city’s history,” Preckwinkle said. “The challenges that our city faces are not simply ideological. It’s not enough to say that Chicago stands at a crossroads. We need to fight to change its course.”
The city has had a large AfricanAmerican population for much of its 181year history, but only two of the city’s 55 mayors have been black: Harold Washington from 1983 to 1987 and Eugene Sawyer from 1987 to 1989. Only one woman, Jane Byrne, has held the mayor’s office, from 1979 to 1983.
Lightfoot would also be Chicago’s first openly gay or lesbian mayor.
Elizabeth Todd-Breland, a professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the moment is significant for a city that has long suffered racism and the marginalization of its black residents.
“Toni and Lori’s respective platforms are the products of pressure from sustained community organizing efforts on issues of education, police accountability, and racial and economic equity over the last couple of decades,” Todd-Breland said.
“This does not mean that Chicago has suddenly transformed into a politically progressive city. But the next mayor will have run on relatively progressive promises.”
The race between Lightfoot and Preckwinkle likely will be as hardfought as the first round of voting when 14 candidates fought for the mayor’s seat.
A head-to-head poll published by 270 Strategies before the vote Tuesday showed Lightfoot leading Preckwinkle 42 percent to 25 percent.
The two candidates attacked each other relentlessly in the lead-up to the first round of voting.
Preckwinkle tried to paint Lightfoot as a relic of the Emanuel and Richard M. Daley administrations. Both mayors selected her to serve in high-level positions on police accountability panels.
“While my opponent was taking multiple appointments in the Daley and Emanuel administrations, I fought the power elites that were trying to hold this city back for decades,” Preckwinkle said.
Lightfoot has punched back. She frequently pointed to Preckwinkle’s ties to Alderman Ed Burke, the 50-year veteran of Chicago’s City Council who was charged by federal authorities last month with attempted extortion.
Burke is accused of trying to shake down the operators of Burger King restaurants in Illinois. He has pleaded not guilty and was re-elected on Tuesday.
Lightfoot criticized Preckwinkle last week after a senior Preckwinkle campaign adviser posted a photo of Nazis at the Nuremberg trials on social media to argue against supporting Lightfoot.
Preckwinkle fired the aide and apologized to Lightfoot.
“Politics is a tough business,” Lightfoot said. “... But it is disturbing to me that a mayoral candidate’s top adviser believes the genocide of millions of people is a casual enough subject to be used as a joke to settle a political argument.
“Take note of those that surround the people we expect to lead.”