Brandon Johnson or Paul Vallas for Chicago mayor? Voters have their say as city waits to learn who won
Mayoral candidates Brandon Johnson, left, and Paul Vallas vote on Election Day in Chicago on April, 4, 2023.
The affable but gutsy Johnson first won public office in 2018 when he defeated Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin, who earned the ire of organized labor by voting against Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s so-called pop tax. There, he largely heeded Preckwinkle’s direction while passing some legislation of his own that focused on criminal justice. None of that work earned him substantial name recognition among Chicagoans during the early months of the race.
Vallas unsuccessfully ran for governor in the 2002 Democratic primary against Rod Blagojevich, lieutenant governor in 2014 on the ticket that lost to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, and mayor in 2019. While his first two runs were competitive, his 2019 bid was a major failure that led to doubts over his viability.
The next mayor will succeed Lightfoot — Chicago’s third Black mayor, the second woman and first openly gay chief executive in City Hall. She was ushered into office on a rousing message of reform, but the COVID-19 pandemic, crime wave and recurring political feuds of her own making made her a one-term mayor.
His campaign mantra that “public safety is a human right” was backed with detailed plans to beef up the police force and remove policies he described as encumbering. On the trail, he depicted the city as one overrun by lawlessness, where children are murdered without impunity and once-gleaming business corridors are under siege.
To that end, Johnson had cast Tuesday’s runoff — falling on the 55th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination — as “the resurrection of the city of Chicago,” an encapsulation of his bid to see his election as an extension of the civil rights movement.Throughout the race, Vallas faced repeated questions about his association with Republicans, a toxic label for a politician in overwhelmingly blue Chicago.
To ease voters’ concerns about his party identification, Vallas unfurled endorsements from political leaders ranging from City Council progressive caucus chair Sophia King to U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate. Vallas also introduced himself everywhere he went as a “lifelong Democrat.”
In the middle of March, Vallas began attacking Johnson more aggressively for his past support of the “defund the police” movement and his record as a teachers’ union organizer. Eventually, Johnson settled on an answer where he stated simply, “I’m not going to defund the police” and promised the Police Department’s budget would not be “one penny” less.Vallas and Johnson also argued over the shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Vallas attacked Johnson over the CTU’s refusal to teach in-person during two work stoppages.
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