Voters chose former teacher Brandon Johnson to replace Lori Lightfoot to lead the nation’s third-largest city, culminating the city’s mayoral election season that has centered on the increase in crime during the COVID-19 pandemic and high property taxes.
Tuesday’s highly anticipated runoff election was a tight race between Paul Vallas, a former public schools executive backed by the city’s police union, and Johnson, a union organizer endorsed by the teachers union which become highly influential in city politics.
“It’s clear based on the results tonight our city is divided,”
Vallas told supporters around 9:30 p.m. in a concession speech.
He said he called Johnson and told him he “absolutely expects” him to be the next mayor of Chicago.
Johnson, a former teacher and union organizer, and Vallas faced off in the runoff after Lori Lightfoot became Chicago’s first incumbent mayor in 40 years to lose re-election.
The election went to a runoff after none of the nine candidates received at least 50 percent of the vote, with Vallas and Johnson leading the pack.
Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools CEO, campaigned as a center-leaning Democrat, with promises to be tougher on crime — winning him an endorsement from the Chicago police union.
He was endorsed by Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) as well as former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Vallas’ predecessor at CPS, and former Congressman Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), who co-founded Illinois’ chapter of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.
Johnson, meanwhile, was backed by the Chicago teachers union and several progressive members of Congress, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and “Squad” member Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.).
The dividing issue in the race has been their differing stances on crime.
During his campaign, Vallas called out Lightfoot for permitting an “utter breakdown of law and order” on her watch and pledged to fully fund city police departments, if elected.
