Votes from Chicago’s February election are official and there will be 14 races for City Council in addition to the race for mayor
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The votes from the first round of Chicago’s election on Feb. 28 were made official Wednesday and West Side Ald. Chris Taliaferro joined several others in having to win a runoff in less than three weeks in order to keep his seat.
The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners certified the results, setting up a head-to-head fight on April 4 between Taliaferro and longtime West Side activist and politico CB Johnson to be alderman of the 29th Ward.
Until just a few days ago, Taliaferro had received more than 50% of the vote in the first round of balloting but that changed in subsequent days as more vote-by-mail ballots were counted.
The 29th Ward race is one of 14 aldermanic runoffs on the ballot, along with the mayoral runoff that features Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson versus former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas.
In addition to Taliaferro, other incumbent aldermen who won in 2019 are Gilbert Villegas, 36th, who will face Leonor “Lori” Torres Whitt, and Jim Gardiner, 45th, who will face Megan Mathias. Three other incumbents heading to runoffs — Ald. Nicole Lee, 11th, and Ald. Monique Scott, 24th, and ald. Timmy Knudsen, 43rd — were appointed recently to the council by Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Lee is being opposed by Anthony Ciaravino, Scott is facing off against Creative Scottand Knudsen is being challenged by Brian Comer.
Other City Council races that will be featured in the runoff include the 4th, 5th, 6th, 10th, 21st, 30th, 46th and 48th wards.
Ald. Daniel La Spata, 1st, squeaked through the first round with 50.1%, just 15 votes more than he needed to avoid a runoff against attorney Sam Royko in the Northwest Side ward that includes parts of Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, West Town and Logan Square, according to the board.
Now that the election results have been certified, candidates have five days to request a discovery recount in their race as a prelude to going to court to challenge the official results. State statute allows only candidates who ended up within 5% of the declared winner to request the recount, and Royko was not that close to La Spata in the 1st Ward race. Royko got 23.4% of the vote while two other candidates split the rest.
Royko released a statement Wednesday commending La Spata on a hard-fought race “decided by a handful of votes — a reminder that every vote matters.”
Royko pledged to remain active in the ward, adding, “this is not the end.”
Taliaferro on Wednesday said he has no plans to challenge the results.
Overall, 35.85% of registered Chicago voters cast ballots in the Feb. 28 election, compared to a 35.45% turnout in 2019, according to the Election Board.
Taliaferro ended the night on Feb. 28 with more than 50% of the votes cast in the three-candidate election in the ward that zigzags along the city’s western border from Austin through part of Galewood all the way north to Dunning on the Northwest Side.
But in the weeks since, vote-by-mail ballots have continued to trickle in. Two 29th Ward write-in candidates received 112 total votes, according to the board, and Taliaferro’s share of the total fell to 49.75%. Johnson got 39.8%, while community activist Corey Dooley received 9.3%.
The top two vote-getters move on to the runoff if nobody lands more than half.
Twitter @_johnbyrne
