Chicago scores a win. We don’t want nobody sent.

Lori Lightfoot on Hitting Left with the Klonsky Brothers. June, 2018.

Nobody could have predicted the scope of the election results in Tuesday night’s Chicago municipal election.

There was the defeat of the head of the storied Chicago Democratic Party by no less than a margin of 2-1 in every Chicago ward.

There was the victory of a an African American gay woman who announced her run against Rahm Emanuel – the sitting mayor – when few else would take on the challenge.

The final margin of victory was a whopping 74% to 26%.

Even in my own 35th ward where Alderman Carlos Rosa was one of Preckwinkle’s most aggressive supporters, Lightfoot carried the ward with 66% of the vote. It was a greater vote margin than Rosa received himself in the February primary.

There was the defeat of 40th ward alderman Patrick O’ Connor. He was Rahm’s floor leader. He was Rahm’s choice to replace the disgraced Eddie Burke to head the powerful Finance Committee. O’Connor goes back to the old Vrdolyak 29, which tried to block the reform agenda of Chicago’s first Black mayor in 1983.

O’Connor was beaten handily by a Democratic Socialist, Andre Vazquez.

Other Democratic Socialists who will sit in City Council include the incumbent Daniel Rosa in my 35th ward, Daniel La Spata in the 1st ward and Byron Sigcho-Lopez in the 25th ward,

As of this morning the result of the race in the 30th ward is still to be determined. DSA member Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez holds a 24 vote lead over incumbent Deb Mell. The 30th ward has seen a 50/50 split in several previous elections. Independent Democrat, Aaron Goldstein beat the boss of the Democratic Party ward machine and father of Deb Mell, by 50 votes in his run for War Committeeman several years ago. Mail-in votes are still to be counted.

Another extremely close race is in the 46th ward where the lousy incumbent, James Cappleman holds a tiny lead over progressive, Marianne Lalonde.

There will be other new progressive faces in the City Council including Maria Hadden from the far north side 49th ward and and Jeanette Taylor in the 20th. Taylor is a community activist who took part in the hunger strike which successfully prevented the closing of south side Dyett High School.

Following school closings, scandals and the cover-up of the Laquan McDonald killing, Rahm Emanuel was forced to forego a third term.

Nearly two-dozen candidates jumped into the race. Most pundits, observers and two major unions miscalculated as to who would survive the primary to face each other in last night’s run-off.

Most figured to see Bill Daley and Toni Preckwinkle in the run-off. Fearing another Daley, the Chicago Teachers Union and the SEIU quickly endorsed Preckwinkle, President of the Cook County board of commissioners and head of the Cook County Party.

Lori Lightfoot is a partner in Mayer-Brown, a big Chicago law firm. She has served on several iderations of police review boards and sat on the task force that Rahm created following the killing of Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke.

At first, the prospect that Chicago would have an African American woman as mayor excited many progressives.

Then things went south.

As usual, the politics of the mayor’s race was distorted by social media. Some tried to falsley paint Lightfoot as a pawn of Rahm Emanuel and the Fraternal Order of Police.

Preckwinkle, whose progressive credentials were mixed at best, was tied to the corruption of the crooked Eddie Burke and the recently ousted Joe Berrios who had been County Tax Assessor.

In the end voters rejected the negative narrative about Lightfoot. The Machine label on Preckwinkle stuck.

Turnout was low.

My early guess as to why 70% of the voters stayed home?

Chicago municipal elections, scheduled for late Winter and early Spring, are usually low turn-out affairs.

Many voters never saw the kind of differences between the two candidates that some on social media tried to create.

Preckwinkle’s decision to go ugly and negative was dispiriting and suppressed the vote. Preckwinkle ran a terrible campaign which turned off many voters.

And there was race. In Chicago there is always race.

A teacher friend emailed me yesterday. “My wife’s Irish and Polish relatives that are married to cops and children of cops in Jefferson Park said they were going to vote for
Lightfoot without enthusiasm, but I wonder in the end if they voted?”