Five things to watch for in Chicago’s mayoral race

Chicagoans will decide Tuesday night who will replace Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) as their next mayor in a contest that has offered two starkly different Democratic candidates.

Former Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Paul Vallas, a centrist, and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, a progressive, are vying to be the city’s top executive after they both qualified for the April runoff following the initial February election.

Vallas finished first during the initial February race with 33 percent of the vote while Johnson placed second at 22 percent.

The pair have offered drastically different approaches to tackling key issues like crime and education, and recent polling suggests the race will be close with voters split between the two candidates.

Here’s five things to watch for in Chicago’s mayoral election:

Both candidates need to turn out their bases 

Both candidates will be seeking to bring out their base of support while also swaying voters who first picked Lightfoot or Rep. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.) during the February race.

Recent polling shows that the race is racially polarized, with Vallas, who is white, performing better among white voters while Johnson, who is Black, performing better with Black voters.

One poll released last week by a group of Black and Latino nonprofits in addition to Northwestern University’s Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy found Vallas and Johnson  each receiving 44 percent. Another 12 percent were undecided.

Vallas did much better in that poll among white registered voters, with 51 percent supporting or leaning toward him, compared to 42 percent for Johnson. Johnson, in contrast, won 55 percent support from Black voters who said they were voting or leaning toward him, compared to 28 percent for Vallas.

In February, Vallas performed well in the northwest wards, several of the South Side wards in addition to some of the whiter and more affluent neighborhoods closer to the lakefront, including Lakeview and Lincoln Park in addition to the city’s Central Business District.

Johnson performed better around the northern pockets of the city, including in neighborhoods like Andersonville, Irving Park and Arcadia Terrace.

Latino voters are key

Latino voters are in a position to potentially decide the race.

The Northwestern poll suggested Vallas performed better with the group, receiving 46 percent while Johnson received 35 percent.

“One interesting finding is that one-third of Latinos think Vallas also may be Latino,” the groups note in their findings, which might offer an unintended advantage for the candidate.

Supporters of other candidates get their say

Only about 55 percent of Chicagoans voted for Vallas or Johnson during the February election, begging the question of where voters who backed Lightfoot and other candidates will go.

Lightfoot performed well predominantly in many South Side wards in addition to parts of western Chicago while Garcia performed well in a handful of wards, including the neighborhoods of Little Village, Gage Park and Lower West Side.

Vallas finished in second place in a number of wards won by Garcia in February.

The wards won by Lightfoot are more difficult to analyze, though Johnson performed better than Vallas in a portion of them.

Businessman Willie Wilson, who was among the original nine candidates running for mayor in February, placed second in some of the wards Lightfoot won, adding a bit of uncertainty to the face. Wilson has since backed Vallas in the runoff.

What can the race tell us about crime, education as wedge issues

Though both candidates are Democrats, they’ve signaled different approaches to how they would tackle key issues like crime, public safety and education.

Vallas has campaigned as a tough-on-crime candidate who’s pushed to have the police force restored to 13,500 cops while putting more police on Chicago transit and having cops dedicated to regular neighborhood beats.

The former CPS CEO has also been a school choice advocate who’s been supportive of having police in schools and has pushed to have funding for schools pushed to the institutions themselves.

Johnson has spoken about public safety more from an initiatives perspective than one solely focused on the role of police. His messaging has also more consistently leaned toward addressing the root causes around violence.

While he’s advocated for the promotion and training of 200 more police detectives, his platform also calls for the opening of an Office of Community Safety, doubling youth employment to 60,000 within the city and creating a missing persons initiative.

The Cook County commissioner, who is also a former teacher and organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, has been against charter schools, unlike Vallas.

And while Vallas has been supportive of student-based budgeting, financing that relies on school enrollment, Johnson has advocated against it.

Polling even before the initial February race showed crime and public safety weighing heavily on the minds of Chicago voters.

Though local races can only be extrapolated so far, whoever wins the race could offer clues about how voters are feeling in the country’s third largest city over how they want to see public safety and fixing public schools tackled.

What will be the turnout and how close will it be? 

Though off-year elections generate smaller turnouts compared to presidential and midterm elections, there are reasons to think the race could see a good turnout.

Fourteen aldermanic runoffs are also taking place on Tuesday, which could drive voters to the polls. School is out of session this week for Chicago Public Schools.

The Chicago Board of Elections tweeted on Tuesday that, as of 9:00 a.m. local time, 304,090 ballots had been cast in total, making up 19 percent of the city’s registered voters.

In February, 36 percent of the city’s registered voters cast ballots for nine different candidates.

That turnout is similar to the 35 percent of registered voters who came out in February 2019. During the April runoff election that year, the percentage dipped to 33 percent.

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