In 2019, Lori Lightfoot took the stage in a downtown ballroom and promised to usher in “one Chicago, indivisible and united for all.” She had simply received the runoff in a landslide, taking all 50 wards to turn into the primary Black girl and brazenly homosexual particular person to guide America’s third largest metropolis. Lightfoot, who had by no means held elected workplace till then, had not solely vowed to usher in police reform in a metropolis nonetheless reeling from the homicide of Laquan McDonald and the dealing with of it by her predecessor; she’d promised to “remake” town’s notorious machine-style politics. “Collectively, we will and can lastly put the pursuits of our individuals — all of our individuals — forward of the pursuits of a robust few,” she mentioned after defeating Cook dinner County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. “I actually hope that Lori might be the sunshine for this metropolis,” one supporter instructed me throughout Lightfoot’s jubilant victory celebration.
On Tuesday night time, Lightfoot needed to give a really completely different speech.
After 4 tumultuous years in workplace, Lightfoot grew to become the primary Chicago mayor in 4 a long time to fail to win reelection. “It’s been the distinction of a lifetime to be mayor,” Lightfoot mentioned in an emotional speech Tuesday night time, conceding to Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson, who will sq. off in a runoff election in April. “Clearly, we didn’t win the election right now,” she added, “however I stand right here with my head held excessive and a coronary heart filled with gratitude.”
Her fast downfall—from a landslide victory in 2019 to a third-place end with lower than 20 p.c of the vote—might be partly attributed to her proclivity for giant, messy political fights: The acrimonious battles with Metropolis Council and the Chicago Lecturers Union; the hostilities with the press; the infamous scrap over a Christopher Columbus statue that, in keeping with a lawsuit final yr, allegedly boiled over with the mayor berating employees with this line:
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However her loss Tuesday additionally displays the undercurrent of strife and nervousness that has run by large cities like Chicago within the wake of the pandemic and the social unrest of 2020. Although Lightfoot definitely confronted criticism for her dealing with of COVID and the 2020 racial justice protests—together with town’s aggressive police response to the demonstrations—polls by 2020 typically confirmed broad approval for her management. However assist fizzled by 2021, amid a spike in violent crime, and continued to plummet by 2022, regardless of enhancements in some public security metrics that she cited throughout her reelection marketing campaign in an effort to fight assaults from her opponents.
As I reported earlier this week, these assaults proved particularly potent for Vallas, a former Chicago Public Colleges CEO who has run on a conservative, “tough-on-crime” platform that echoes Eric Adams’ successful bid for New York mayor a little bit greater than a yr in the past. “We’ll make Chicago the most secure metropolis in America,” Vallas mentioned in a main victory speech Tuesday. However public security has additionally proved a robust message for Johnson, the crowded discipline’s most progressive candidate, who has argued that Lightfoot didn’t ship on her promise of police reform and has referred to as for a extra holistic strategy to crime discount that features extra funding in traditionally uncared for neighborhoods on the South and West sides. “We get to show the web page on the politics of outdated,” Johnson instructed supporters Tuesday night time. “We’re going to lastly retire this story of two cities.” For sure, the Vallas-Johnson race shall be a research in stark contrasts: a candidate who boasts the support of the right-wing Fraternal Order of Police versus one other candidate who has spoken in favor defunding the police.
Whereas Lightfoot 4 years in the past promised a united Chicago, voters right here now seem sharply divided between her opponents’ competing visions for town: With about 34 p.c of the vote, Vallas led the preliminary spherical Tuesday—to cheers from Darren Bailey, the MAGA Republican whose failed 2022 problem to Governor JB Pritzker hinged, partly, on the concept Democratic management had turned Chicago right into a “hell gap.” “God Bless Chicago!” Bailey tweeted Tuesday night time. “You might be lastly figuring it out!!!” Ought to Vallas obtain within the runoff the roughly 10 p.c of votes garnered by the race’s different conservative—perennial candidate Willie Wilson—he’d have about 45 p.c. In the meantime, Johnson, who took about 20 p.c of Tuesday’s vote, would get to about 40, if voters from the race’s different extra progressive candidates—United States Congressman Chuy Garcia, 27-year-old activist Ja’Mal Inexperienced, State Consultant Kam Buckner, and Alds. Sophia King and Roderick Sawyer—had been to shift to him in April.
Meaning the race for Metropolis Corridor may come all the way down to the 17 p.c of voters who voted for Lightfoot, who didn’t run as far to the appropriate as Vallas however not as far to the left as Johnson. The place her center finally goes may very well be as potent a logo for nationwide attitudes on problems with public security as her loss itself. It’s unclear if Lightfoot herself will make an endorsement or which of her two rivals she’d again, however on Tuesday she referred to as every to congratulate them on making the runoff, and mentioned she’d be “rooting and praying” for town’s subsequent mayor.
