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Here’s a rundown of the two candidates and the factors that could decide the race, from Tuesday’s POLITICO Illinois Playbook:
How they’d approach crime: Vallas wants to increase the Chicago Police Department by 2,000, while Johnson wants to improve social service programs to address what he sees as the root causes of crime.
What they agree on: They both support keeping Lightfoot’s Invest South/West program for economic development on the Sound and West sides.
Their union labels: Johnson is backed by the liberal Chicago Teachers Union, and Vallas is supported by the conservative Fraternal Order of Police. Vallas has accepted donations from conservative donors, while Johnson’s campaign is backed almost solely by teachers’ unions and organizations.
Their Achilles’ heels: Johnson has been quoted saying he wants to defund the police, though he has since walked back his comments. And Vallas has been critical in the past of high-profile Democrats in his own party.
The problem for moderates: “Voters are making a choice between the conservative status quo like the Richard Daley era, or a progressive in Johnson,” political consultant and former alderman Dick Simpson said. It’s causing some existential angst among voters who might have backed Lightfoot or Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia in the first round of the election.
It’s historic: Simpson says the race is different than most any other mayoral race Chicago has ever seen. “Going back to 1871, there’s been a split between machine candidates and reform candidates. What’s different this time is that the choice is between conservative status quo and progressive.”
Black and white voters: Simpson and other political watchers say the African American vote will be essential for both candidates. Johnson must get 80 percent of the Black vote to win, and Vallas needs above 20 percent for him to make it over the finish line. The numbers are pretty much reversed for white voters.
Latino vote is more complicated: Garcia has backed Johnson, but many Latino voters have aligned with Vallas over his focus on fighting crime.
We may not know tonight who wins. Polls close at 8 p.m. Eastern/7 p.m. Central. Polling is showing the race within the margin of error, which means there may not be clear winner until mail-in ballots are counted. Johnson, for example, went up a few points after the night of the primary thanks to mail-in-ballots, which were tallied later.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
“We’re not just passing out palm cards or endorsing, we are involved in the very embryonic stages of running a movement electoral contest that helps us build more people, ideas and energy into our quest for a truly just and equitable public education system in Chicago,” CTU President Stacy Davis Gates said in an interview.
“All of the things happening in our city, the violence, the unhoused crisis,” she said, “those are things that become intertwined with fully funded schools, smaller class sizes, a nurse and social worker in every building.”
The labor group wants to remake how the city government addresses housing, poverty and education, and it has built an independent political organization to push that mission. It has supported winning campaigns of progressive Democrats to the Chicago City Council, Illinois General Assembly and Congress — even though its picks for mayor in 2015 and 2019 lost to Rahm Emanuel and Lori Lightfoot.
In Brandon Johnson — a progressive county commissioner, former CTU organizer and teacher whose soaring oratory has been a hallmark of rallies and contract fights — the union’s critics see a takeover of the city’s politics.
“CTU already has outsized power compared to any other union or special interest group because unlike the police or the firefighters or transit workers, they have the right to strike,” said Forrest Claypool, a former Chicago schools chief who resigned from office amid a 2017 ethics scandal.
“They also have an outsized impact on working families who have no other choice on where to send their children,” said Claypool, who is supporting Johnson’s opponent, Paul Vallas. “That power, combined with a mayor who is essentially a wholly owned subsidiary, would make them a dangerous force.”
The union has proven to be a thorn for past mayors. Union work stoppages under Emanuel and Lightfoot in 2012, 2016, 2019 and 2022 infuriated city and corporate leaders who have sought to reform urban schools in ways favored by centrist Democrats.
But it also drew criticism over its refusal to return to in-person teaching during the pandemic as a protest for stricter district safety protocols that drew national attention — particularly after many suburban districts and private schools found ways to bring students back.
Now the union and its state and national affiliates have bankrolled Johnson’s campaign with millions of dollars, and committed up to $2 million more through a CTU plan to apportion a chunk of monthly member dues to union PACs. A roster of labor group members work or volunteer for Johnson’s campaign to advance the union’s formidable ground game.
Divisions over public safety and race were central campaign themes in the lead-up to Chicago’s nine-person Feb. 28 election that ousted Lightfoot, but the first round’s results only made things more complicated. By picking Vallas and Johnson, voters advanced two figures with divergent philosophies for the city that reflect a polarized electorate.
It also elevated deep divisions over education.
Although Vallas focused his campaign on public concerns about the city’s crime and Johnson’s history of supporting efforts to “defund” the police, whoever wins on Tuesday will have immense responsibility over a shrinking school district with troubled finances.
The election comes as Chicago schools, home to 322,000 students who are predominantly Black and Latino, stand to re-enter a period of financial turmoil that left officials relying on expensive borrowing to keep the lights on and make payroll not long ago.
The city is also decentralizing the power mayors once held over the Chicago Board of Education just as its latest contract with teachers expires in 2024. While the next mayor will still get to appoint a chief executive, they will begin to face members of a school board who are elected rather than appointed — a longtime CTU goal that marks an opening for the labor group to expand its influence.
A former Chicago Public Schools CEO, Vallas has won support from past school chiefs including Obama-era Education Secretary Arne Duncan, the city’s police union, many business leaders, the state’s charter school community, and a D.C.-based PAC affiliated with former Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
Test scores saw mixed results during Vallas’ Chicago tenure, though nearly 80 schools were opened, including charters, and Vallas helped land two collective bargaining agreements. Vallas even drew praise from then-President Bill Clinton.
But the district failed to contribute to teacher pension payments and instead used the money for other expenses, seeding financial problems that still loom over its balance sheet. Vallas also embarked on a system where staff and administrators at low-performing schools were fired and dozens of campuses were ultimately closed.
Vallas then left Chicago to oversee troubled school systems in Philadelphia, New Orleans and Haiti, where he similarly drew praise and criticism.
Vallas said that as mayor he would focus on visiting schools and going to union meetings — and negotiating directly with union officials, even after a contract is signed.
“We would regularly, monthly, talk about issues and to kind of head off grievances before they were filed,” he told POLITICO about his approach.
But overall, many prominent Democrats are split on the race.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who broke with Lightfoot to support teachers during the 2019 contract fight that culminated with an 11-day strike, rank among a list of progressives backing Johnson. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and former Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) have endorsed Vallas.
To some influential labor figures, CTU’s trajectory is obvious.
“I would argue that the CTU has won already,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in an interview.
“Before Brandon was a candidate, what I heard from journalists was that CTU was disconnected from the community and they didn’t have the support that they used to have,” Weingarten said. “If that was true, then Brandon would not have gotten as far as he’s gotten. CTU has a tremendous network, there’s tremendous engagement, and CTU clearly helped Brandon get to where he’s gotten.”
The possibility of Johnson as mayor has some education watchers concerned he would be controlled by the CTU and realign the mayor’s office to the union’s causes.
“I don’t recall anywhere in the country where a paid organizer, someone for any union group, now having the keys to the executive office,” said Chicago City Council member Tom Tunney, a Democrat who is backing Vallas. “I just really think there needs to be a balance of power there.”
Johnson dismisses concerns that he would have a difficult time managing his relationship with the CTU.
“I’m going to be the mayor for the city of Chicago for everyone. It’s how I got here. It’s about being collaborative,” he told attendees at a City Club of Chicago luncheon last week.
“As the mayor of the city of Chicago, everyone should get what they deserve,” Johnson said. “No one should lose at the expense of someone else winning. That is my philosophy. And that’s how I’m going to approach every negotiation.”
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“It’s going to be nasty,” Democratic state Rep. Kam Buckner, who also ran for mayor, said in an interview. “People will pick sides — people with a history when it comes to racial sensitivity. There will be a lot of talk about race and class and schools and crime.”
Although Washington made history as the city’s first Black mayor, it was a hard-fought campaign of rising Black leadership met with political tribalism, freewheeling racism and a sense on both sides that failure had winner-take-all consequences. It won’t be as toxic in 2023 as it was in 1983 but there’s a general sense of the city’s potential to stumble backward.
“It’s a different turn. I wouldn’t say we’ve moved beyond it,” said Larry Luster, a consultant who has worked on campaigns for Democrats Sen. Dick Durbin and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul. “It’s not as aggressive and outward as it was during the Harold Washington era. People try to say things in a more civil way but a lot of times those undertones are still there.”
There are also forces that see an opportunity for proxy conflict since the differences are so stark.
Voters didn’t pit Lightfoot into a runoff against former public schools chief Paul Vallas from her right, nor did they set her against Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson from her left. Instead, the two Democratic men facing off are as diametrically opposed on policy as any of Lightfoot’s challengers can be — a reflection itself of how divided the city is.
Vallas, who is white, ran for mayor in 2019 and believes in school choice, has been chastised by his rivals throughout this cycle for claiming years ago he was a Republican, despite his many statements since of being a lifelong Democrat. Running a campaign almost singularly focused on public safety and winning the endorsement of Chicago’s conservative police union only cemented the views of his critics.
Johnson, who is Black, is a Cook County commissioner, a former schoolteacher and has been a paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, which has funded a large part of his campaign. He’s been on the record saying he supports the “defund the police” movement, too.
“This isn’t a six month campaign. So things will be fast and furious on TV, digital, mail and field,” said political consultant Becky Carroll, who has worked on national and state-level campaigns, including for former President Barack Obama and Gov. JB Pritzker. “Will things get ratcheted up? I can’t imagine they won’t because a lot is at stake.”
The weeks leading up to the Feb. 28 election were pretty messy but what’s so jarring is how different the 2019 campaign played out — an open race after two-term Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel didn’t seek reelection.
There were 14 candidates in the general election then and Lightfoot was the top vote-getter before she swept all 50 of the city’s wards in the runoff against Cook County Board Chair Toni Preckwinkle.
“We had two strong, accomplished women who appealed to much of the same electorate,” Carroll said.
That is not the case this time.
Neither Vallas nor Johnson are soft spoken and Johnson was quick to take a swing Tuesday.
“We’re going to finally retire this tale of two cities,” he told his supporters on election night, evoking Chicago’s longstanding racial and economic divisions. “Paul Vallas is the author of the tale of two cities.”
He also used the speech to accuse Vallas of being supported by “January 6 insurrectionists” — a move Ald. Raymond Lopez, who made an early bid for mayor before dropping out weeks ago, called “outrageous” and an indication of where the race is going.
Vallas and Johnson have powerful bases, which is why they made it into the runoff. But they’re separated by less than 70,000 votes after an election where tens of thousands of people fueled Lightfoot’s third-place finish, and nearly 149,000 Chicagoans backed one of the other six candidates.
More broadly, for a city where demographics split fairly evenly between white, Black and Latino residents, it’s also not clear how groups of Latino voters shift in the runoff.
Johnson will try to win over voters in majority Black wards that overwhelmingly supported Lightfoot. And he’ll also be looking to progressives — the Lakefront liberals — on the city’s North Side who backed Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia’s ill-fated campaign in the first round of voting.
Vallas, meanwhile, spent the days before the Feb. 28 election calling fellow candidates asking for their support ahead of the runoff. He hopes to land supporters of Willie Wilson, a Black businessman and perennial candidate for office who, like Vallas, has courted conservative voters.
“You’ve got folks who are going to bring out the charter, school-choice reform contingent versus public sector unions and neighborhood schools sectors,” said Buckner, the state lawmaker. “They’ll put a lot of money in this space. We have a Gen-Xer versus a Baby Boomer, and that will bring out another group of folks in this race.”
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