Today is the primary for Chicago municipal elections. The most highly watched race is for mayor of the city. Incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) appears to be in trouble and may not make the run-off.
Chicago has a nonpartisan primary where if the first-place vote-getter gets over 50%, they win. If not, then the top two finishers compete in a runoff on April 4.1 The race is officially nonpartisan, but all nine candidates are Democrats. The conventional wisdom – backed by the limited polling – is that there are only four candidates that have a shot at making the runoff. In addition to Lightfoot, they are former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas (who is also the only white candidate in the race), Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, and US Representative Jesus “Chuy” Garcia. Businessman Willie Wilson might surprise us by landing in the top four, but he is unlikely to make the top two.
Vallas is backed by the Chicago Police union and supports expanding charter schools. His campaign has echoed that of New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) in highlighting crime as an issue. He has been criticized by some as not being a “real” Democrat, and the support he is getting from right-wing quarters is not helping him play that criticism down. In fact, the right-wing attacks on Johnson might actually help . . . Johnson. Criticizing him as a democratic socialist and pro-union probably does more to help Johnson than hurt him with the Chicago electorate. Johnson is endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, who have soured on Lightfoot. In fact, it appears that both the police and teachers unions may be working to defeat Lightfoot more than to elect their preferred candidates. Garcia has the reputation as the most progressive in the race, although Johnson’s supporters probably would contest that, but his candidacy has just not resonated with voters. Garcia, Vallas, and Wilson have all lost previous mayoral elections.
The Chicago and New York experiences are not the same, and that could end up being to Vallas’ detriment. New York uses a party primary system, rather than a nonpartisan runoff system like Chicago. Additionally, New York uses ranked choice voting (RCV), also known as instant runoff voting. Adams finished in first place during the first round with just 30.7% of the vote. Progressives collectively got about the same share of vote. Adams, who is Black, likely would have lost to a progressive in a Democratic party primary if the Left candidates had not split the vote – although it is possible a more moderate candidate like Kathryn Garcia would have won in a three-way race (the other candidates were not, despite how they feel about it, serious candidates). Vallas, who is white, will likely be in a head-to-head match with a Black or Latino progressive in the runoff election. Adams faced a Republican in the general election, which any of the Democratic candidates would have beaten.
As we saw in last year’s midterms, polling in off-presidential elections is fairly sparse these days. That has a lot to do with the lack of paying media clients in lower-profile elections (apparently, every election other than for president is low-profile these days). But there have been a few polls in Chicago, including the most recent one by 1983 Labs which has Vallas with 23.9%, Lightfoot with 17.9%, Garcia with 15.9%, and Johnson with 14.5%. Victory Research (B/C) also released a poll in the past week which shows Vallas in first with 26.8% and Johnson in second with 20.2%. Lightfoot finishes third in this poll with 18.7%. An M3 Strategies (no rating) poll from last week had Vallas in first with 32%, Johnson in second with 18%, and the mayor in third with 13.6%. The polling seems to suggest that Lightfoot may actually finish in second place, but the margins of error in these polls indicate that it would not be shocking for Lightfoot, Johnson, or even Garcia to make the runoff.
Some analysts think we can learn a lot more about candidate support from Google Search Trends than one might assume. There was some interesting discussion of that at last year’s AAPOR conference, but I don’t think anyone was yet convinced. I am skeptical, but this is an opportunity to test that proposition.2 According to Crowdwisdom360, which advises investors on trends, GST - which shows the share of candidate searches out of total searches for all candidates - has Vallas at 32%, Lightfoot at 23%, Johnson at 18%, Garcia at 14%, and Wilson at 13%.
It could be some time before we know the results. Chicago allows mail-in votes to be received and counted as late as March 14. And if the third place finisher is within five points of the second place finisher, the third place finisher can petition for a recount.3 It is possible that Vallas will get big head start for April 4 while a close second place finish takes weeks to settle. It’s also possible that the margin between second and third place will be wide enough that the race can be called quickly. We’ll know more after tonight.
This is the same date as the Wisconsin Supreme Court runoff election.
Considering the margins of error in the polling, GST may not be that different than the polling, so perhaps this is not such a good opportunity to test the proposition.
I think this is correct. What the law says is that if a losing candidate gets 95% of the vote for a winning candidate, the losing candidate can petition for a recount. Major media outlets are reporting this to mean that the second place finisher has to beat the third place finisher by five points to avoid a runoff.