Bob Fioretti announces intent to again run for Cook County state’s attorney
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Former Ald. Bob Fioretti, who has run for and lost several public offices since leaving the Chicago City Council, announced Wednesday his latest bid, trying again for Cook County state’s attorney. But this time he’s running as a Republican.
Surrounded by roughly two dozen supporters, Fioretti said the office under outgoing State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has “turned into a social service agency instead of the prosecuting arm of the people, as it should be,” and that violent crime and fear of it was threatening to throw Chicago into the “chaos” experienced in San Francisco and Baltimore.
Fioretti has launched several unsuccessful campaigns since 2015 when he left the City Council where he burnished his reputation as a Democrat who often went against the incumbent mayor’s wishes. Among his runs for office, he finished last in the 2020 Democratic primary for state’s attorney against Foxx and several other candidates, garnering just 5% of the vote. Foxx won and went on to win the general election with 54% of the vote.
“Yes, my critics will throw slings and arrows at me. They will say I’ve run for office too often. But guess what? I don’t give a damn what they say. I care about our communities,” Fioretti said during the announcement, held at the Billy Goat Tavern on the Near West Side on Madison Street.
In addition to his bid for state’s attorney, Fioretti also ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Chicago in 2015 and 2019 — a nonpartisan race. The cycle before, he lost to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in the 2018 Democratic primary by 20%.
Fioretti again took on Preckwinkle in 2022, but switched parties, running as a Republican and attempting to tie Preckwinkle’s tenure as board president to Foxx, who once worked for Preckwinkle and was considered a protege.
Fioretti was part of a slate that local GOP organizations put forward to fill vacancies left on the ballot after the June primary. It was an unsuccessful strategy: Preckwinkle won with 68.5% of the vote to Fioretti’s 28.3%. Libertarian Thea Tsatsos garnered 2% of the vote.
Cook County is becoming less and less hospitable to Republicans. President Joe Biden in 2020 received 66% of the vote in Cook County to Donald Trump’s 32%. Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, also won the 2022 general election with 66% of the county vote. Only one Republican — Sean Morrison — remains on the Cook County Board. No Republicans hold countywide office.
Fioretti, 70, said he was accused of being a Republican, “even when I was a Democrat,” but that his values have remained the same. Violence affects all political stripes, he continued, adding “lifelong Democrats” want change.
“These progressive state’s attorneys, district attorneys throughout the country, the 70-some that have been elected,” he said. “They view the victims as if they don’t matter. They view police as the enemy. They view the criminal as those that are the victims.”
In his announcement, Fioretti invited prosecutors who left the office during Foxx’s tenure to come back to work for him if he’s elected and addressed police officers as well: “I’ve got your back … bring in the crooks and I will bring the charges.”
The number of homicides has fallen by 24% compared with this time in 2021, according to year-to-date Chicago Police Department statistics, one of the city’s deadliest years in recent history. There have been 534 homicides recorded by the department as of Nov. 5. Year-to-date shootings are also down compared to this time in 2022, 2021, and 2020, but they are still higher than pre-pandemic 2019. Meanwhile, robberies and thefts remain much higher than recent years — car thefts, for example are 233% higher compared with 2019, according to CPD statistics.
It’s unclear whether Fioretti will run alone in the Republican primary.
Jim Durkin, a former longtime state lawmaker who led the Republican minority in the Illinois House for nine years until stepping down in January, said he was “still considering the race and going through due diligence.”
A former assistant Cook County state’s attorney, Durkin took a shot at Fioretti’s decision to run as a Republican after vying for office previously as a Democrat.
“I will not change my party affiliation as a matter of political convenience,” he said.
There are so far only two announced Democrats running in the March primary to replace Foxx, who said she would not run for reelection earlier this year: Clayton Harris III, an attorney and lecturer at the University of Chicago who has the support of Preckwinkle, Foxx and the Cook County Democratic Party; and Eileen O’Neill Burke, a retired 1st District Appellate Court judge.
