Chicago voters rejected efforts by moderate Democrats and Republicans to turn Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson’s support for criminal justice reform into a fatal liability.
Paul Vallas
In his victory speech, Brandon Johnson emphasized the importance of coalition in his campain and pointed toward the need to continue building coalitions across the city moving forward. He appealed to those who did not vote for him and promised to work together.
Voter turnout sat at 33.2% when polls closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday, with 530,382 ballots cast, according to the Chicago Board of Elections. That's compared to 32.1% turnout for the Feb. 28 election.
Chicago will elect a new mayor and voters in 14 wards will also elect a new alderperson to the Chicago City Council.
Both Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas will spend the final days of what is expected to be the closest election in Chicago history scrambling for any possible advantage – and trying to make sure their supporters cast a ballot.
Polls show Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner, and Paul Vallas, the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, running neck and neck with a large portion of voters undecided.
The next mayor will face a number of education hurdles, including the transition to an elected school board, a new teachers union contract, securing school funding and the end of a moratorium on school closures.
The only violence people wanted to hear about was the harm being done to their health due to decades of pollution from surrounding industries.
Mayoral candidates Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas made their case to voters at a packed forum held in Pilsen, and the words “crime” and “police” didn't come up once.
The independent expenditure funded by the Illinois Network of Charter Schools, paid for $258,000 in cable television advertisements on March 16 and $359,000 in digital advertising on March 15, records show.
Much of the focus has been on the mayoral candidates’ public safety plans, but whoever emerges victorious on April 4 will also inherit environmental and climate-related challenges.
The race for Chicago mayor enters its final stretch. Political speechwriter, debate strategist and senior lecturer at Northwestern University Jason DeSanto breaks down the latest developments in a tightening race.
Efforts by the leaders of large cities across the country to bring back officers amid a nationwide staffing crunch have fallen short, and experts on policing told WTTW News there is no evidence that Chicago will prove to be any different.
An elected school board. A new teachers union contract. The end of a moratorium on school closures. Those are among the biggest education hurdles Chicago’s next mayor will have to navigate over the next four years
The race for Chicago mayor continues to focus nearly entirely on the crime and violence that both candidates agree threaten the city’s economic vitality. They offered wildly different solutions to the seemingly intractable problem.
Jesús “Chuy” García’s endorsement is designed to unite the city’s progressives behind Brandon Johnson, a critical part of Johnson’s path to defeating Paul Vallas, who has consolidated Chicago’s conservative political establishment under his banner.
Sanders said he backed Johnson because the Cook County commissioner “understands the struggle of working people.”
