After winning second term, Democratic Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx thanks supporters and promises to continue reform efforts
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Democratic Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx on Wednesday thanked supporters for delivering her a second term and promised to continue criminal justice reform efforts aimed at keeping communities safe.
Foxx took a reelection victory lap on Wednesday, with a handful of media interviews, after withstanding a challenge from Republican former Cook County Judge Pat O’Brien.
She dismissed criticism over this year’s rising violent crime and her office’s handling of the Jussie Smollett case, saying in an interview with WGN-TV that while her office could have better handled the former “Empire” actor’s case, voters trusted her to deliver a criminal justice system that serves “the everyday citizen” and not just celebrities. She defended her office’s backing of sweeping bail reforms by pointing out violent crime went down during the first three years of her term.
“No question 2020 has presented a number of challenges, but we can’t be overly simplistic and try to find a singular source when we know that this is a complicated issue,” Foxx said.
In unofficial totals, Foxx had 54% to O’Brien’s approximately 40% with 98% of precincts reporting at the end of Tuesday night. Libertarian candidate Brian Dennehy had garnered about 7%.
Foxx’s win was based on her support in Chicago, where unofficial totals showed she had hauled in nearly 560,000 votes to O’Brien’s roughly 263,000 with some 98% of precincts reporting.
Her mantra that solving crime requires an introspective look at how trauma manifests in communities will continue to guide her second term, she said on WGN-TV’s morning show.
“We have a lot of people who have found themselves victims of violent crime who then also pick up a gun,” Foxx said. “We shouldn’t wait for someone to get hurt before we invest in making sure that people are whole and healthy.”
Speaking on WVON-AM 1690 earlier, Foxx thanked supporters for helping her secure another four years.
Host Ernest Fenton nodded to the county’s first Black woman top prosecutor’s likely stronghold with Black voters and said, “All of our skin folk ain’t our kinfolk, but you certainly are skin folk and kinfolk.”
“I’m kinfolk with a lot of folks out here in the community and I take that seriously and I take the commitment to making sure that our communities are represented seriously,” Foxx replied, drawing from her core message that Cook County’s criminal justice system must treat Black and Latino people fairer.
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Foxx was one of a slate of progressive prosecutors nationwide calling for systemic change, and she might have been aided Tuesday by a presidential vote in a county that appeared to have overwhelmingly supported Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. The election took place following months of protests across the country demanding an overhaul of the criminal justice system sparked by the death of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer in May.
O’Brien, a former Cook County assistant state’s attorney and judge, took a tough-on-crime approach and argued that Foxx has endangered public safety by letting offenders walk free. He sought to capitalize on voters’ concerns about crime at a moment when shootings and homicides in Chicago are both up about 50% over the prior year, putting the city on pace for one of the most violent years of the last quarter-century.
He also highlighted the scandal that has dogged Foxx — last year’s dropping of 16 felony counts against Smollett, who had been charged with faking a hate crime against himself. Special prosecutor Dan Webb concluded in August that there was no evidence prosecutors committed any crime but that they misled the public about the extraordinary deal Smollett received.
Changing the system has been Foxx’s consistent theme since 2016, when she beat Democratic incumbent Anita Alvarez in the primary. Foxx had heavily criticized Alvarez for waiting more than a year to file murder charges against white police Officer Jason Van Dyke for killing Black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Her office, for example, raised the bar on felony shoplifting charges and pushed for the pretrial release of more detainees on bail.
O’Brien conceded late Tuesday night in brief remarks to supporters at a Niles event center, saying, “We gave it our best shot,” before walking off without taking questions.
“Hopefully, the next four years will find us in a better position than we are now,” he said. “We did what we could, and maybe some good will come of this.”
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