Either Paul Vallas or Brandon Johnson will go from one long, tough slog to another as Chicago voters select the city’s 57th mayor on Tuesday and hand the winner an array of intractable problems.
In key ways, Chicago is a city in crisis. Its business community hasn’t fully recovered after the double shots of COVID-19 and civil unrest, particularly downtown. Chicago Public Schools is entering a period of enormous transition as the school board transforms from a body appointed by the mayor to a group selected by city voters. CTA buses and trains, long a source of pride in the city that works, have been maligned for “ghosting” passengers and being filthy.
Either Vallas or Johnson will be called on to address those issues as well as endemic gun violence, entrenched segregation, and decades of disinvestment — a tough job even under the best of circumstances.
The rivals made Tuesday’s runoff after finishing as the top two in a bitter nine-way race to lead the nation’s third-largest city, guaranteeing an ideological battle between politicians with starkly divergent visions on how to lead the city.
To get here, the candidates defeated first-term Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose combative leadership provoked a polarized race to replace her at City Hall.
Vallas, a 69-year old former schools chief, has long been a critic of the Chicago Teachers Union that Johnson helps lead, asserting the union’s work stoppages during the pandemic harmed children’s well-being and hurt their growth for generations. Johnson, 47, regularly paints Vallas’ approach to public education as “morally bankrupt” for his promotion of private school vouchers and expansion of charters across the country.
On crime, Vallas has offered tough talk and positioned himself as the pro-law enforcement candidate who will stamp out the “complete lawlessness” he has seen in Chicago by, among other things, reversing Police Department rules he contends restrict cops from doing their jobs. Johnson, meanwhile, decried the city’s reliance on policing as a “failed” strategy and instead promised a new citywide strategy that would shift focus toward community investments in housing, mental health and more.
The candidates have savaged each other over the past five weeks, criticizing one another for their public safety and finance plans, diametric philosophies on education as well as past associations with, in Johnson’s case, the “defund the police” movement and, in Vallas’, Republican and right-wing circles.
Now the voters get their say.
On Monday, Vallas campaigned at Old Fashioned Donuts in Roseland, where he deflected questions about his standing in the polls.
“I’m just driving on. I see that finish line. I’m not looking at who’s catching up or where my opponent is in the race,” Vallas said.
His message to undecided voters, Vallas said, is “about leadership,” and he heralded his time leading school districts in Chicago, New Orleans and Philadelphia, among others.
The school districts “that I’ve had the privilege of taking on have been by invitation, and they’ve always been institutions in crisis,” Vallas said. “Whether it was the city budget crisis in the ’90s or taking over (CPS) schools in 1995 with Gery Chico or rebuilding a district that had been destroyed by a catastrophic hurricane. … I’ve always responded to calls for help. The city needs help.”
The candidate, who was joined by 9th Ward Ald. Anthony Beale and former South Side U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, then bought several dozen doughnuts for his campaign team.
Johnson, meanwhile, campaigned at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters in Hyde Park, where he was asked if he feels his campaign is a “David and Goliath” race. He noted that he was a little-known candidate when he announced his candidacy last fall.
“I would say that is quite the leap to the forehead of the political establishment and when that smooth stone hits it, it’s gonna fall,” Johnson said.
Johnson said a win on Election Day would reverberate nationally.
“Our win tomorrow sets up a standard of what it takes to move a city,” Johnson said.
Key questions remained for the candidates. Vallas made the runoff after winning more conservative white wards on the Northwest and Southwest sides, as well as downtown wards and the Near North Side. Johnson did best with progressive voters on the north lakefront and along Milwaukee Avenue.
Both have tried to broaden their appeal to Latino and Black voters, key blocs who broke in favor of other candidates in the first round and who now have to choose between Vallas and Johnson. To that end, the runoff election has been just as much about race in a segregated city as it has been about crime, taxes and education.
While touting a campaign of “unity,” Johnson has also seized upon a message of Black liberation and frequently attempted to portray Vallas as dismissive of minority communities in Chicago. Vallas, in turn, has stressed his long-standing relationships with Black and Latino political leaders who say they trust his experience while condemning what they say are Johnson’s attempts to make it about “race.”
But ultimately, the candidates understood they came from opposite ends of the spectrum in the original nine-candidate field and had to pivot to the center to gain ground.
Johnson in recent weeks forcefully repudiated the “defund” calls to reallocate law enforcement budgets despite embracing them in 2020. Vallas has hammered his message of being a “lifelong Democrat” and sought to line up establishment surrogates such as former Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, a popular Black politician, to counter attacks that Vallas is a conservative in disguise.
Whatever direction Chicagoans pick Tuesday is sure to spell a new era for the city’s politics: It will be the first time a sitting mayor has been ousted from reelection since 1983, when Harold Washington beat Jane Byrne.
Election Day also follows a rebellion from City Council, which declared independence last week in a sweeping reorganization ordinance that was the culmination of four years of discontent under Lightfoot. And it will serve as the first referendum on the future of Chicago after a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic as well as civil unrest and racial justice protests deeply fissured the city on issues of policing, schools and more. Fourteen of the 50 aldermanic seats are also up for grabs in Tuesday’s runoff, with the council looking at significant turnover whatever happens.
The weather on Election Day is also expected to be poor, adding another variable to the mix as the candidates seek to turn out support. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, though election officials are urging people to voter earlier in the day as conditions are expected to worsen later.
