2023 Chicago Mayoral/Aldermanic Elections

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

He is a moderate white ethnic Democrat.....that is what he is...He is probably gonna win anyway because Chicago doesn't like crime.

If Johnson wins, the CPD goes on strike or there is a slowdown/exodus.

No, he’s a DINO Republican. 

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

How come Sanders endorsed Johnson but Garcia hasn't yet?
Is there any bad blood between them?

Lingering primary bitterness, also Chuy looks very weak if Vallas wins Mexicans anyway

This. I suspect he stays out of it. He wrote a very non-committal editorial this week outlining what he hopes "the next mayor" does. I think if he was going to endorse, he'd have done it. I also think Vallas comfortably carrying the Hispanic vote is a real possibility.

Well, that seems to me very petty and self-serving behavior coming from a guy who presents himself as a progressive champion.

Of course it is, welcome to Chicago

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

I think the biggest concern for Johnson at this point is that he still trails in Alderman endorsements.  That could chip away a bit here and there at his AA margins.  Johnson needs to absolutely clean up with AA voters and affluent white liberals.  I’m pretty confident about the latter and he’s clearly rapidly consolidating the AA vote, but I worry it won’t be quite enough.  Hopefully, he can at least avoid getting completely blown out in the Hispanic wards.  This should be close either way and Johnson definitely has the momentum, but I’m far from sold that he’s going to do more than just give Vallas a scare (which is a shame b/c Vallas is pond scum).

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/royalpratt/status/1639985844047032321?s=20

Gross

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The Vallas-is-a-Republican posters really need to reckon with the fact that the last two mayors before Lightfoot were Rahm, who pushed CTU to its first strike in a quarter-century, and M. Daley, who took control of CPS and replaced dozens of schools with charters (as part of his general project of stripping the copper out of city government). Vallas's record on education is what it is, but it's Chicago Democrats who have been the architects of privatization and charterization in Chicago schools (and Vallas who was hand-selected by M. Daley to organize much of that!). Haven't seen much to suggest Vallas would be too different from those two.

It sounds like both of them were awful too. Just because they claimed they were Democrats doesn't mean they actually did mainstream-Democrat things. Same with Vallas; what has he actually proposed that is mainstream Democrat at this point? Everything you see about him screams that he's *technically* a Democrat, but a very, very, very conservative one at that - and for a city like Chicago, that sounds terrible.

Rahm Emanuel has plenty of Democratic bona fides and was as mainstream as it gets. Being the mayor of a big city is probably the hardest elected job in politics and when facing a budget crisis every year something needs to be defunded or privatized or taxes need to be raised. It seems like most progressive policy in cities comes from the city council or the DA and I don't think that's a coincidence. As mayor you have to be the bad guy or outsource being the bad guy to people like Vallas as Daley did.

Rahm Emanuel was always a fairly conservative Democrat and despised by most progressives (with very good reason) when he was Obama's Chief of Staff.  I'll grant you that he wasn't an outright DINO like Vallas, but that's d***ing with faint praise.  At best, he is way to the right of the current Democratic mainstream (and I'd argue he has been ever since the 2008 cycle).