Current Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has lost her bid to get reelected as mayor, edged out by rivals who don’t yet have a record of letting Chicago collapse into complete anarchy and become even more of a crime-ridden cesspool.
In fact, she didn’t even come in second. She came in a dismal third, with candidate Paul Vallas winning the battle with 153,747 votes as of the time this article was written and Brandon Johnson coming in second with a little over 89,000 votes. The battle will now head to a runoff on April 4th, as no candidate garnered 50% of the vote.
BREAKING NEWS🚨LORI LIGHTFOOT OUT IN CHICAGO as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Loses Re-Election bid.. pic.twitter.com/euqZAldTW7
— Matt Couch (@RealMattCouch) March 1, 2023
Vallas and Johnson, as winner and runner up, will head to the runoff on April 4th. Lori Lightfoot will, fortunately for Chicago, not be included.
BREAKING: Lori Lightfoot has lost re-election. Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson will advance to the April 4 runoff in the Chicago Mayoral race.
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) March 1, 2023
I've seen enough: Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson advance to the April 4 runoff in the Chicago mayoral race, defeating Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) March 1, 2023
Paul Vallas, the winner, is likely the best option for Chicago, even if a Democrat. That’s because he’s reasonable enough that his opponents accused him of being a Republican, as Politico reported, saying:
Vallas won the endorsement of Chicago’s conservative Fraternal Order of Police and faced accusations from his rivals of being a Republican despite declaring himself a Democrat.
Lightfoot, who was trailing in many polls ahead of the election, attracted a tremendous amount of criticism over how she operated in City Hall.
Vallas has also been a school administrator in New Orleans and Philadelphia, and unsuccessfully campaigned for Illinois governor in 2002. When he didn’t qualify for the Chicago mayoral runoff in 2019, he endorsed Lightfoot.
He is also the only white candidate in the competition, as PBS reported, saying:
Race also is a factor as candidates court votes in the highly segregated city, which is closely divided in population among Black, Hispanic and white residents. Lightfoot, Johnson and five other candidates are Black, though Lightfoot — who is hoping strong support from Black voters will help propel her to victory — has argued that she is the only Black candidate who can win. Garcia, the only Latino in the race, would be Chicago’s first Hispanic mayor, while Vallas is the only white candidate in the field.
Additionally, his Twitter account liked posts calling for a return to stop and frisk policies, so maybe a Vallas victory will mean a return to rational law enforcement in Chiraq. Predictably, the left attacked him for his calls for rational policing, as PBS also reported, saying:
Lightfoot has accused Vallas of using “the ultimate dog whistle” by saying his campaign is about “taking back our city,” and of cozying up to the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, whom she calls a racist. A recent Chicago Tribune story also found Vallas’ Twitter account had liked racist tweets and tweets that mocked Lightfoot’s appearance and referred to her as masculine.
Vallas denied his comments were related to race and says his police union endorsement is from rank-and-file officers. He also said he wasn’t responsible for the liked tweets, which he called “abhorrent,” and suggested someone had improperly accessed his account.
His account liked some other incredible posts too, as the Chicago Tribune reported, saying:
After Vallas announced in June that he would enter the 2023 Chicago mayor’s race, the account continued to like tweets that derided Democrats and played into racial and gender divisions.
“Just don’t push that democratic agenda that the citizens of Chicago are tired of,” one June 2022 post said. “You know defund this, reform that, color this, female that, We just want someone to do the job.”
Back in April 2022, the Vallas account liked a tweet insinuating Chicago police Superintendent David Brown was a diversity hire and calling the mayor a racist.
“He was hired for one reason and one reason only. He was black,” the tweet said. “Other candidates were more qualified, but they weren’t black. Lightfoot is a racist, big news flash.”
So maybe Chiraq will get a return to rational governance. One can only hope.
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