Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s fate in doubt as polls close

As polls close in Chicago’s mayoral election race, Lori Lightfoot appears destined to become the Windy City’s first incumbent mayor to lose re-election in 40 years. 

Heading into Tuesday’s race, Lightfoot’s prospects appeared bleak, with the embattled Democratic mayor trailing multiple candidates in polls.  

A survey done by Victory Research just days before the election placed Lightfoot in third place, with just 18.7% of the vote, behind former head of Chicago Public Schools Paul Vallas (26.8%) and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson (20.2%). 

Vallas’ lead over Lightfoot has been expanding, with his vote total increasing by nearly 5 percentage points since Victory Research’s last tally.

An M3 Strategies poll released last week also showed Vallas in the lead, but by a greater margin, with 32% support, well ahead of Lightfoot’s 13.6%. 

If no candidate receives 50% of the vote in Tuesday’s contest, the top two vote-getters would face off in an April 4 runoff election.

In a race where crime and public safety have emerged as top issues for voters, Lightfoot has faced heavy criticism for rampant crime that has plagued Chicago during her tenure, as well as for injecting race into the election and saying that voters who don’t support her shouldn’t show up to the polls. 

Under Lightfoot, Chicago recorded 695 murders at the end of 2022 and 804 in 2021 – a level not seen in the Windy City in a quarter of a century.

In addition, the city saw more than 20,000 cases of theft in 2022, nearly double the amount of theft incidents in 2021, according to the Chicago Police Department’s end-of-year report. 

Lightfoot alleged that critics of her four-year tenure just don’t want to see “a black woman” in leadership in the New Yorker Saturday.

“I am a black woman — let’s not forget,” she told the outlet. “Certain folks, frankly, don’t support us in leadership roles.”

The 60-year-old mayor is the first black woman and first openly lesbian mayor of Chicago.

“The same forces that didn’t want Harold Washington to succeed, they’re still here,” she told the New Yorker, referring to the Democrat who was elected in 1983. “The last time we had an African American mayor in power was 40 years ago. It’s important for us not to repeat history.”

Lightfoot made the claim despite eight of the nine mayoral candidates in Tuesday’s race being people of color. 

Lightfoot, 60, told South Side Chicago voters earlier this month that they should not vote at all if they do not vote to re-elect her, but later insisted that she misspoke.

The mayor claimed that voting for “somebody not named Lightfoot is a vote for Chuy Garcia or Paul Vallas,” referring to her challengers. 

“If you want them controlling your fate and your destiny, then stay home,” Lightfoot continued. “Then don’t vote.”

She later told reporters she did not mean to suggest voters should sit out the election.