Chicago’s 2023 election results finalized: Highest number of ballots cast since 1999

More voters cast ballots in the city’s April 4 runoff election than came out weeks earlier in the general election, making the runoff the highest ballot-count election in Chicago in nearly a quarter century.

Chicago election officials Tuesday finalized the results of the runoff, memorializing wins for Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson and 14 members of the City Council that were forced into the runoff because no winner scored a majority of votes in the Feb. 28 general election.

A total of 613,795 Chicago voters cast ballots in the runoff. While turnout at nearly 38.7% was only slightly higher than recent years, it was the highest ballot count of any municipal election since February of 1999, Chicago Board of Elections spokesman Max Bever said. That election featured a landslide victory for incumbent Mayor Richard M. Daley against U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush. It was the city’s first nonpartisan municipal election and 623,755 total ballots were cast that year.

In February of this year, 566,973 voters came out to the polls, voted early in-person or voted through the mail, for a voter turnout of nearly 35.9%.

Turnout in runoffs has been both up and down in Chicago. In 2015, when Mayor Rahm Emanuel fended off a challenge from Jesús “Chuy” García, turnout jumped in the runoff to 41.1% from 34% in the general. But in 2019, when Lori Lightfoot defeated Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, turnout in the runoff dropped to 33.1% compared to nearly 35.5% in the general.

With a race for mayor on the ballot, the voter turnout was higher in Chicago than in the suburbs where the biggest races were mostly school board elections and the highest voter turnout was in DuPage County with 20.3%.

In Chicago, the final count for the 2023 results shows continuing popularity of early and mail voting. In this year’s runoff only 43% of voters cast their ballot in person on April 4, while 30% voted early in-person and 26.3% voted by mail, officials said.

The city broke a municipal early vote record on April 3, when election officials encouraged early turnout to avoid storms forecast for Election Day. A total of 30,044 people cast their ballots in person the day before Election Day.

Total vote tabulation takes this long, in part, because of the time it can take for mail ballots to return to the board. Nearly 54,000 mail ballots, which had to be postmarked by Election Day to be counted, continued to trickle in between April 4 and the April 18 deadline, according to the board.

Those returns helped push Brandon Johnson’s win over challenger Paul Vallas from 51.44% on the night of the election to 52.16% at the time of proclamation, and tip the scales for certain aldermanic races that were too close to call election night.

Not all ballots made it back: 33,173 mail ballots were sent to voters but not returned, either with a timely postmark or at all, Bever said.

Turnout by age and gender will not be available until later this week, but early returns showed the number of young people voting rose compared to the first round of the election in February.

Tuesday’s proclamation also solidifies the makeup of the new City Council, which is younger and considered more progressive than the one that just ended. While many of the candidates in the 14 runoff races on April 4 ballots declared victory or accepted defeat on Election Day, others were too close to call in the days immediately following the election.

The closest was in the 30th Ward race on the Northwest Side to succeed outgoing Ald. Ariel Reboyras. Final results showed Ruth Cruz edged out Jessica Gutiérrez by 291 votes. Cruz is an assistant director of admissions at Roosevelt University, and Gutiérrez is a former teacher and policy director for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center who’s also the daughter of former U.S. Rep Luis Gutiérrez.

Also close was the race on the West Side in the 29th Ward where incumbent Ald. Chris Taliaferro managed to hold on to his seat, besting community activist CB Johnson by 308 votes. Taliaferro had mounted an unsuccessful run for Cook County judge in 2022 and was forced into a runoff by just a few dozen votes in the general election in February.

The open 5th Ward race to succeed Ald. Leslie Hairston was another close one: community organizer Desmon Yancy ended up defeating Martina “Tina” Hone, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s chief engagement officer, by 426 votes. The race to represent the South Side lakefront ward that includes South Shore focused on issues of gentrification near Jackson Park and the site of the Obama Presidential Center.

In the 43rd Ward, Brian Comer had initially refused to concede to appointed Ald. Timmy Knudsen to represent Lincoln Park. In the end, Knudsen won with just under 53% of the vote. Knudsen and Taliaferro were one of several incumbent aldermen who won in the runoff. Appointed Ald. Nicole Lee held on to the seat Lightfoot appointed her to representing the 11th Ward by winning convincingly with 62% of the vote over challenger, Chicago police Officer Anthony “Tony” Ciaravino. Incumbent 45th Ward Ald. Jim Gardiner and 36th Ward Ald. Gilbert Villegas also held on to their seats.

Compared to the start of the 2019 term, there will be 16 new aldermen taking office next month. Inauguration day for Mayor-elect Johnson, City Council, Clerk Anna Valencia and Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin is set for May 15, though a location has not been announced yet.

Chicago Tribune’s Dan Petrella contributed.

aquig@chicagotribune.com