Chicago Megathread: With CTU on strike, Lightfoot lays out her budget

[Mr. Illini]

Paul Vallas with an apparent Lightfoot endorsement in his concession speech

[Mr. Illini]

Daley concedes!!!

[Mr. Illini]

WGN says Daley wasn't in top 3 among black voters and didn't lead Hispanic or white voters. That's the ball game.

[Mr. Illini]

Race called for LaSpata over Moreno. Huge shocker.

Theme of the night: most wards are moving away from the machine, while a few strongholds are actually more so gravitating toward it

[Mr. Illini]

WGN says Daley wasn't in top 3 among black voters and didn't lead Hispanic or white voters. That's the ball game.

Yeah WGN said Lightfoot and Daley were running even with white voters, which is shocking.

Not to me. White progressives don't like Daley. They really, really like Lightfoot.

I am one

[Mr. Illini]

Preckwinkle speaking now and already hitting Lightfoot hard. This is why she is so good at what she does.

[Mr. Illini]

And hitting Rahm hard! Getting her revenge, I suppose. They always hated one another.

[Mr. Illini]

City just now releasing the ward results. Lightfoot dominated the north side. Preckwinkle won the nearer south side but Wilson actually won the far south side. Mendoza won most Hispanic areas (telling me low turnout). Daley won the far NW side and downtown.

[Mr. Illini]

Tribune has the map: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/elections/ct-met-viz-chicago-mayor-election-results-htmlstory.html

[Mr. Illini]

WTF!!!??? I thought Mendoza was a shoe-in, against either Preckwinkle or Daley. What happened, and where did Lightfoot come from?

The top candidates were too effective in nuking each other. Lightfoot never got attacked and had broad appeal to many different demographics.

Unfortunately, Mendoza's campaign was not good at all. Her campaign was light on substance and she focused on attacking Preckwinkle and only switched strategies a week or so before the election, when her campaign was obviously in free fall.

It had more to do with the Burke scandal playing out in the middle of the cycle, imo. The Sun Times endorsement gave her legitimacy, and then she entered the airwaves with a great ad essentially saying "all the candidates leading the polls are friends with Ed Burke, but I am not." North side reformists jumped all over it.

[Mr. Illini]

An additional thought: Joyce won the wards that I would have expected to go for Daley. My guess is that without Joyce in the race, Daley would have picked up a good chunk of those votes, and probably would have made the runoff. Then again, those Joyce wards are loaded with police, firefighters and other city workers. They may have felt Daley would be too beholden to business and not enough to their interests, and needed to park their votes somewhere - that happened to be Joyce.

the quip I saw was "Joyce's platform was 'hands off pensions' and Daley's platform was 'I am going to put my hands on your pensions'"

Yep. Daley was the ONLY CANDIDATE who said he'd favor amending the constitution to allow the state and city to reduce pensions of current workers. That's a no-no among city workers, obviously.

[Mr. Illini]

Here's the map for Treasurer...



This really highlights how much higher turnout was in white progressive wards than in minority wards. Pawar was only at 70% in his home ward and only over 60% in one other neighboring ward. Meanwhile, MCE had a swath of wards where she was over 70% and even more over 60%. Yet, they ran even.

There are some interesting trends here as well. Pawar won white progressive wards handily. MCE won black wards handily. However, Latinx and WWC wards were not unified. They were actually split by side of town (though by small margins).

Pawar took Latinx wards on the NW side, but MCE took Latinx on the SW side. Pawar took WWC wards on the NW side, but MCE took WWC wards on the SW side. I attribute this to local politics - Pawar is a north side alderman and MCE's husband is a south side state rep.

It is also worth noting that Peter Gariepy - a candidate who ran no ads - had decently high vote counts in WWC wards on the far NW and SW sides. He was the only white candidate.

Also of note is that Wards 3, 4, and 5 - majority black wards that are wealthier and lean more progressive than the rest of the south side - had relatively close margins. Compare to the rest of the south side that went overwhelmingly for Conyears-Ervin.

[Mr. Illini]

Should I be shocked looking at that map how many Wards Wilson carried?

Not by much. He's got money and a lot of support with the black church (those are all black wards)

He also has contacts across the political spectrum and in business as well as in the churches. I've worked with him on a task force and he understands the needs of the black community, but lacks the message to make inroads in other parts of the city.

I was surprised that he took so many wards from Preckwinkle. Regardless of her waning popularity, she’s still a major force in Cook County and within the black community.

[Mr. Illini]

Who's voters will vote for who now?

We don't really know. Lightfoot support was strongly correlated with Preckwinkle support, and vice-versa -- Lightfoot was usually second or third in the South Side wards where Preckwinkle was first or second, while Preckwinkle was second or third in Lightfoot's north side wards. The wards that went for other candidates often saw Lightfoot or Preckwinkle finish something like 5th or 6th.

If I had to guess, I’d say the bulk of Wilson’s voters will go to Preckwinkle. Although, it’s worth noting that they defected to Wilson in the first round despite Preckwinkle’s support among leaders within the black community. Who is to say they won’t defect again?

I have to think that Daley’s voters downtown and in copland will go to Lightfoot, but that turnout among them will be fairly low.

Where Latinx voters will go is very much up in the air.

[Mr. Illini]

WBEZ has a great interactive precinct map at the link below. So many news sources are doing our work for us these days.

https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/chicago-2019-election-results-map-what-neighborhoods-voted-and-for-whom/ad63ab9e-a924-4155-a3fe-6b7faf1e7812

Lightfoot won my precinct with 31%.

[Mr. Illini]

One place where the machine still works: the 11th Ward. Despite it being a much more diverse than it used to be, Daley won every single precinct there. Its' borders stand out clearly on the map because of it. Patrick Daley Thompson is the alderman there.

[Mr. Illini]

Alright guys, who is more progressive?

Seems to be the big question lol

[Mr. Illini]

Extremely surprising to see 1) Ramirez-Rosa endorsing Preckwinkle and 2) Preckwinkle endorsing Bernie.

The former isn't that surprising to me. He endorsed her before last Tuesday, likely as the most likely progressive candidate to make the runoff (and as the alternative to Daley). Plus, she is the head of the party, so she got a LOT of endorsements off the bat just because of that.

The latter is just a pander. Preckwinkle endorsed Hillary against Bernie last time around. And she hasn't formally endorsed Sanders this time, and likely won't.

[Mr. Illini]

First debate happening tonight at 6pm on NBC5

https://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/chicago-mayor-debate-watch-live-506759251.html

Second was scheduled for tomorrow, hosted by the Sun Times, but Preckwinkle backed out (the ed board endorsed Lightfoot)

https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/sun-times-cancels-mayoral-debate-preckwinkle-noncommittal-lightfoot/

[Mr. Illini]

We're only about a week in and I am already so worn out from this runoff

[Mr. Illini]

In the first debate, Preckwinkle was asked about backing of Berrios, alliance with Burke, and hiring Burke's son to patronage job. She deflects by saying that when she talks to people, they want to talk about their own neighborhoods.

This is exactly the type of maneuvering that has allowed the corruption to reign in this city for so long. As long as the streets are clean, snow plowed, garbage picked up, the leaders get to do what they want and will continue to get re-elected.

Preckwinkle's responses on corruption and efficiency in city government put such a horrible taste in my mouth.

Like I said, I'm already feeling pretty worn out.

[Mr. Illini]

I dont like Lori’s transportation policy.  Its all about buses, not innovative.  I hate BRT.

So are you voting for Toni?

No, I am leaning towards Lori.  Both are horrible - I predict record low turnout in this runoff.  300,00 or less.

Most Chicago voters aren't like you, Green Line

[Mr. Illini]

what a dumb and boring debate. Toni Preckwinkle says she's a "real Chicagoan" because she's a Sox fan and likes the lake, as if she hasn't lived here since the 60s. I forget what song Lightfoot likes but I don't really care. Just a random string of questions with questionable relevance, and the moderators pressed them on nothing.

The worst part was the discussion about traffic annoyances. And then to try to follow it up with a question about whether police should be diverted to address the traffic annoyances. Bizarre and unproductive segment.

[Mr. Illini]

Willie Wilson endorses Light FOOT.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/elections/ct-met-chicago-mayors-race-willie-wilson-endorsement-20190308-story.html

This ballgame is ova.

Father Pfleger gave an apparent endorsement on Facebook as well.

Those two carry massive weight in the black community.

[Mr. Illini]

Willie Wilson endorses Light FOOT.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/elections/ct-met-chicago-mayors-race-willie-wilson-endorsement-20190308-story.html

This ballgame is ova.

Father Pfleger gave an apparent endorsement on Facebook as well.

Those two carry massive weight in the black community.

Pfleger’s Facebook page confirmed he’s endorsing Lightfoot. Latino Leadership Council also announced endorsement of Lightfoot.

What a week for her campaign.