2023 Chicago Mayoral/Aldermanic Elections

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/ad_quig/status/1630790314809085952?s=20

[Gass3268]

https://twitter.com/napervillepol/status/1630788857829441536?s=46&t=XApXPcXP...

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

I'm glad Johnson made it, ecstatic even! I'll definitely be contributing to his campaign soon. Also, Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez is safe against that DINO that Chuy endorsed. All around a good night, now let's just keep the other DINO out of the mayors office.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Vallas won with 34 percent compared to Johnson he is gonna be Mayor it's good to see Lightfoot going down

[wbrocks67]

Not a Chicago expert, but Vallas only getting 33.8% (which will likely go lower with more VBMs counted I presume) as basically the only conservative in the race seems to bode well for Johnson? In theory, he'd coalesce the Johnson-Lightfoot-Garcia #s at least, right?

[Mr. Illini]

From Wikipedia. The areas that Vallas and Johnson won are both very white. Johnson was a consistent second in black areas, though, and Vallas was a strong second in Latino areas. Maybe a preview.

[Mr. Illini]

Not a Chicago expert, but Vallas only getting 33.8% (which will likely go lower with more VBMs counted I presume) as basically the only conservative in the race seems to bode well for Johnson? In theory, he'd coalesce the Johnson-Lightfoot-Garcia #s at least, right?

I’ve been seeing this take a lot. I’m not sure why people are assuming Lightfoot or Chuy voters would be a lock for Johnson.

[Pheurton Skeurto]

hahaha f--k you Lori Lightfoot

unironically let's go Brandon

[wbrocks67]

Not a Chicago expert, but Vallas only getting 33.8% (which will likely go lower with more VBMs counted I presume) as basically the only conservative in the race seems to bode well for Johnson? In theory, he'd coalesce the Johnson-Lightfoot-Garcia #s at least, right?

I’ve been seeing this take a lot. I’m not sure why people are assuming Lightfoot or Chuy voters would be a lock for Johnson.

Wasn't Lightfoot's strongest constituency black voters? If Johnson was a strong 2nd in those areas, why would they then vote for Vallas?

[Oryxslayer]

Not a Chicago expert, but Vallas only getting 33.8% (which will likely go lower with more VBMs counted I presume) as basically the only conservative in the race seems to bode well for Johnson? In theory, he'd coalesce the Johnson-Lightfoot-Garcia #s at least, right?

I’ve been seeing this take a lot. I’m not sure why people are assuming Lightfoot or Chuy voters would be a lock for Johnson.

I mean we have data in this thread from the map above, and precinct info for those who want to peruse it. The coalitions though are what one expects from block voting.  Which leads to the expectation that if Blick voting continues, Johnson will have Lightfoots African American voters to gain.

People I guess are assuming Chuys vote will go to Johnson because of ideological consistency and past voter behavior for president. That though seems faulty,  mainly cause the Chuy vote was the Block Hispanic vote in most areas. That seems to be the constituency most up for grabs between Valls' White Ethnics and wealthy liberals versus Johnson's African Americans and far northside democrats.

[Babeuf]

Will be interesting to see if Chuy endorses and makes an effort for Johnson. Ideologically they are aligned but it looks like things got nasty between them and their supporters towards the end.

Vallas is very pro-charter and vouchers (every old / retired public school teacher I know in Philly hates his guts) so expect the CTU will fight hard here.

[Mr. Illini]

It’s very possible that Johnson coalesces black voters. The premise of the original comment was that Vallas is “the only conservative.” That misunderstands a lot of things imo.

1) Vallas is the most conservative, but Chuy and Lori’s platforms on things like public safety/crime were much closer to Vallas than Brandon. Basically everyone ran a tough-on-crime campaign except Brandon Johnson.

2) Chuy’s voter base is heavily Latino and has nothing to do with his progressive bonafides. It will matter who he endorses.

[Death of a Salesman]

Vallas has 33.8%, Johnson has 20.3%.

Lightfoot voters are mostly black and presumably pretty liberal. I’d guess they split 70% Johnson-20% Vallas-10% Abstain.

Vallas has 37.2%, Johnson has 32.3%

Garcia voters are mostly Hispanic, and seem to span the ideological spectrum. Vallas ran second with Hispanic voters, but Johnson and Garcia have some ideological overlap. 50% Vallas-40% Johnson-10% Abstain.

Vallas has 44.1%, Johnson has 37.7%

Wilson voters are mostly black and conservative. I think they split about 40% Johnson-30% Vallas-30% Abstain.

Vallas has 46.7%, Johnson has 41.5%.

The 4 minor candidates got 5.5% of the vote. All 4 are black, but King and Sawyer are probably closer to Vallas ideologically. I’d guess they split about 65% Johnson - 25% Vallas -10 % Abstain.

Vallas has 48.1%, Johnson has 45.1%, with 7% abstaining. So I think I’d give the edge to Vallas, but it will probably be a close and racially tense election.


Johnson has a clear lock on leftwing voters, and Vallas has clearly won over conservative and affluent whites. The big swing blocs are moderate to conservative black and Hispanic voters.

[muon2]

Not a Chicago expert, but Vallas only getting 33.8% (which will likely go lower with more VBMs counted I presume) as basically the only conservative in the race seems to bode well for Johnson? In theory, he'd coalesce the Johnson-Lightfoot-Garcia #s at least, right?

I’ve been seeing this take a lot. I’m not sure why people are assuming Lightfoot or Chuy voters would be a lock for Johnson.

I agree, Lori feuded with the CTU which is the core of Johnson's support. Some of Lori's voters will share the mistrust of the CTU, particularly if they support charter schools. Lori has support among the trade unions (as opposed to CTU and the service unions). Watch for trade union endorsements in the coming days as a measure of Vallas' ability to move beyond his current base.

I'd add Wilson voters in the mix, too. Wilson (I've worked with him) is more conservative than Vallas. Black voters for Wilson are more likely to go to Vallas than Johnson IMO.

If Vallas gets most of Wilson's vote plus 40% of Lori's vote, he's basically at 50% before looking at Chuy's vote. Consider that Chuy also had some strong trade union support (esp. the Operating Engineers) and you can see why I want to watch the trade union endorsements. If Vallas gets Chuy's union support, I think he'll have the inside track to the 5th floor.

[wbrocks67]

Honestly, Johnson could just run on Vallas's record and how he destroyed Philly schools.

[kwabbit]

Not a Chicago expert, but Vallas only getting 33.8% (which will likely go lower with more VBMs counted I presume) as basically the only conservative in the race seems to bode well for Johnson? In theory, he'd coalesce the Johnson-Lightfoot-Garcia #s at least, right?

Willie Wilson is more conservative than Vallas. His voters might coalesce around Johnson because Johnson is now the Black candidate, but not because they agree with Johnson ideologically. Wilson is also friends with Vallas, so he might endorse him over Johnson and that could sway things.

Chuy will endorse Johnson, but plenty of his support was identity based with Hispanics and they could buck at the progressive Johnson. This is also true with Lightfoot, although she could endorse anyone.

This race should be treated as a tossup. Vallas might seem too conservative for Chicago, but the median voter doesn’t view him as a Republican, even though that conservative perception is his biggest hindrance. The number one issue is crime and it’s clear that the majority sides with Vallas on that one.

[Babeuf]

Does anyone have any insight into the police council election results? I looked around but couldn't find analysis yet.

[kwabbit]

Not a Chicago expert, but Vallas only getting 33.8% (which will likely go lower with more VBMs counted I presume) as basically the only conservative in the race seems to bode well for Johnson? In theory, he'd coalesce the Johnson-Lightfoot-Garcia #s at least, right?

I’ve been seeing this take a lot. I’m not sure why people are assuming Lightfoot or Chuy voters would be a lock for Johnson.

Wasn't Lightfoot's strongest constituency black voters? If Johnson was a strong 2nd in those areas, why would they then vote for Vallas?

Willie Wilson got second place in most Black wards. Johnson was third and did better than Vallas, but he's neither from the South Side, has strong institutional ties to the South Side, nor is he ideologically congruent with most South Side Black voters.

Johnson is going to win the Black wards in the runoff, but it matters if it's 65-35 or 90-10.

[Lief 🗽]

A runoff beyond a puppet of the corrupt/evil police union and a puppet of the corrupt/evil teachers union. RIP Chicago.

[coloradocowboi]

A runoff beyond a puppet of the corrupt/evil police union and a puppet of the corrupt/evil teachers union. RIP Chicago.

False equivalence ftw

Johnson is going to win the Black wards in the runoff, but it matters if it's 65-35 or 90-10.

This is the take. Vallas can definitely win, but he will need Black and Latino voters to do it. Right now, he's barely a stone's throw away from running an ethnic white campaign though, and that is a losing formula. He needs to take some cues from Lee Zeldin and keep the focus on public safety, not race. Not sure that he can manage that though given his many missteps, e.g. "I'm more of a Republican...," tepid denunciation of DeSantis, "take bake our city" rhetoric. He's dog-whistling and the Left is gonna have a field day with that. Not to mention, whether or not Republicans think its fair, that Republican basically means racist to a lot of big city liberals. This is gonna be a very ugly race either way.

[wbrocks67]

A runoff beyond a puppet of the corrupt/evil police union and a puppet of the corrupt/evil teachers union. RIP Chicago.

one of these is much worse than the other, and it's definitely not the latter

[Pheurton Skeurto]

A runoff beyond a puppet of the corrupt/evil police union and a puppet of the corrupt/evil teachers union. RIP Chicago.

Hilarious juxtaposition

[Lief 🗽]

Obviously the one that actively murders kids is worse than the one that simply refused to teach them for two years, but they’re still both terrible and neither should be running the city government.

[GALeftist]

I think people are severely underrating Johnson. In the first round, Vallas's coalition was Republicans, low college whites, and some Hispanics while Johnson's was high college whites and some blacks. It seems obvious to me that the latter has more upside; the only real question is whether that upside is enough to overcome a 14 point deficit. Here, I think, are some of the keys:

1. A core part of Lightfoot's pitch was racial solidarity as opposed to ideology, and to a limited extent it seems to have worked. Now that she's eliminated, though, I think it's pretty clear that Johnson will take the lion's share of those voters for the same reason. This is especially true because Vallas broadly did pretty poorly in these areas.

2. Wilson's voters are a bit more of a question mark because of how conservative he is. I tend to think they'll broadly go to Johnson too, but if he does endorse Vallas that could matter.

3. Garcia obviously won't endorse Vallas, but Vallas was pretty strong among Hispanics, at least relatively speaking. Then again, you could argue that perhaps many conservative Hispanics selfselected into the Vallas camp in the first round already. Again, I think it will matter if Garcia endorses Johnson.

4. Turnout will probably go up in the runoff, which I suspect will benefit Johnson somewhat.

[Gass3268]

I could be wrong, but looking at the map below, I think Johnson cleans up in the black neighborhoods.

https://twitter.com/ChicagoEl/status/1630979115074322447?s=20