Exactly an hour after President Joe Biden backed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson pledged to do everything possible to ensure she becomes the first Black woman to serve as commander in chief.
The first mayor of a major American city to back her surprise bid for the presidency, Johnson called Harris a “visionary leader” capable of defeating “the threat of another Trump presidency.”
Johnson has repeatedly said that the prospect of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House represents an existential threat to Chicago and its residents.
The next morning, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, along with the state’s entire Democratic congressional delegation, followed Johnson’s lead. Pritzker, who has made no secret of his ambitions for higher office, was a finalist in Harris’ search for a vice president.
Harris and her pick for vice president, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are set to be nominated at the Democratic National Convention, keeping the city — for better or for worse — in the white-hot glare of the national political spotlight.
A candidate for president for less than a month, Harris has revealed few specific policy proposals that shed light on how she’d govern from the Oval Office. Instead, Harris has focused much of her campaign on her promise to restore and protect Americans’ freedoms, a message designed to resonate with Americans across the political spectrum and highlight her support for abortion rights and gender-affirming care.
Harris, who represented California in the U.S. Senate from 2017-21, has been a stalwart supporter of Biden’s initiatives, and would likely continue to pursue many of the same policies if elected.
During that time, Johnson campaigned hard for Harris, who also hails from the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party. That could give Johnson a significant amount of clout in a Harris-led White House, ensuring Chicago’s needs and priorities at least get a hearing. But it remains to be seen whether that will translate into actual assistance or federal funds for the city.
Harris is far more likely to listen to Johnson’s pleas for help for Chicago than Trump, whom the mayor has repeatedly criticized as a liar and a threat to American democracy.
Harris’ election would likely ensure federal approval for existing redevelopment projects or financing for other projects, such as the extension of the CTA Red Line south to 130th Street, set to break ground in 2025.
While Johnson enthusiastically backed Biden before he dropped out, there was a significant amount of tension between the moderate president and the most progressive politician ever to be elected Chicago mayor.
In January, Johnson became the first mayor of a major American city to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and broke a tie vote to pass a nonbinding Chicago City Council resolution calling for a cease-fire.
That put Johnson at odds with Biden and most members of the Democratic Party.
In March, Harris called for an immediate “temporary cease-fire,” putting her position closer to Johnson than the president. The vice president went even further at a rally in Arizona on Friday, the second in a row to be interrupted by pro-Palestinian protestors.
“I have been clear: Now is the time to get a cease-fire deal and get the hostage deal done,” Harris said.
But Harris has rebuffed calls by activists to stop sales of bombs and other weapons to Israel that are being used in Gaza.
It is unclear what the difference between Harris’ position on the Israel-Hamas war that has devastated Gaza and Biden’s will mean to the tens of thousands of marchers set to protest the convention this week.
But the issue that revealed the largest breach between Johnson and Biden was the debate over how to care for the more than 46,400 migrants who have made their way to Chicago, many on buses paid for by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, as part of an effort to divide Democratic voters and help the Trump campaign.
Despite the fact that both Johnson and Biden are Democrats — and Biden picked Chicago to host the Democratic National Convention — the mayor’s repeated pleas for additional help from the federal government to care for the migrants who made their way to Chicago fell on deaf ears.
Although the crisis has moderated since the beginning of the year, and Abbott failed to make good on threats of a renewed surge of buses from Texas in the weeks before the convention, there is no doubt that Johnson would quickly ask a potential Harris administration for additional assistance.
But there is no guarantee that Harris will offer more help to Chicago and Johnson than Biden has, especially given the fact that immigration is likely to remain a hot-button issue for the foreseeable future.
And a Harris victory could prompt Abbott to redouble his efforts to use immigration to drive a wedge between important parts of the Democratic base: Black Americans and Latino Americans.
In 2020, Biden won 82% of Chicago’s votes over Trump and secured Illinois’ 19 Electoral College votes.
Throughout his time as president, Trump repeatedly held up Chicago as the embodiment of all that is wrong with urban America — a “war-torn country” rife with voter fraud and consumed with violence and poverty.
During the campaign, Harris is likely to continue Biden’s embrace of Chicago, a deeply blue city that Democrats hope will offer a vision of what a Harris administration would mean to voters in nearby swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin, both of which proved crucial in Biden’s victory over Trump.
Focus on Immigrants and Reproductive Rights
The stakes of the election remain sky high for undocumented immigrants in Chicago.
Trump has promised a redoubled effort to crack down on all forms of immigration and launch what the official platform of the Republican Party calls the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” While awaiting deportation, people will be held in camps, according to the plans outlined by Trump’s closest aide, Stephen Miller, in an interview with the New York Times.
That would put the thousands of undocumented immigrants who call Chicago home at risk of deportation, threatening to uproot families and decimate communities.
Even if Trump fails to make good on those plans, Trump’s reelection will likely prompt many undocumented immigrants to return to life in the city’s shadows, unwilling to seek help from city officials for health care or protection from the Chicago Police Department for fear of exposing themselves or their families to deportation, immigrant advocates said.
The 2025 Presidential Transition Project, more commonly known as Project 2025, a 900-page manifesto titled “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise,” calls for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to be allowed to conduct deportation operations at schools, churches and playgrounds and to deport all undocumented immigrants, not just those accused of criminal acts.
But the plan’s biggest impact on Illinois would be to reverse efforts by Pritzker to expand access to reproductive and gender-affirming health care in Illinois, which has become a magnet for people from states where abortion was banned after all of the justices Trump appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the constitution does not protect the right to end a pregnancy.
“Conservatives should gratefully celebrate the greatest pro-family win in a generation: overturning Roe v. Wade, a decision that for five decades made a mockery of our Constitution and facilitated the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children,” according to Project 2025.
Project 2025 calls for a national abortion ban and calls for the FDA to reverse its approval of abortion pills and criminalize their distribution.
The official platform of the Republican Party does not call for a national abortion ban, which Trump has said he opposes. However, the platform invokes the 14th Amendment as part of its promise to “protect unborn life.”
That would require courts to treat fetuses as people endowed with rights under the U.S constitution, which could open the door to a national abortion ban and an end to fertility treatments like in vitro fertilization.
Biden’s decision to host the convention in Chicago links Harris’ fate with the city’s, with some critics predicting chaos that Republicans will no doubt seek to lay at the feet of the vice president.
Johnson and Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling have repeatedly said that Chicago police officers are prepared to lawfully police the massive protests expected to erupt around the United Center and downtown while the nation’s attention is focused on the city by the lake.
“Chicago is ready,” Johnson said. “We were born ready.”
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
