Political "Firsts"

[Sandy]

Some historic developments in the city politics of Chicago tonight. Regardless of who won the mayor's race, the city was going to get its first African American female mayor, since both candidates were African American females. As a side note, the one who got elected will also be the city's first openly gay mayor. Initially, there were 17 candidates running, quite a variety of perspectives more or less but the two top vote getters, both African American women, much more alike than different, won the top two spots. Even more inexplicable, the winner, Lori Lightfoot, defeated Toni Preckwinkle in a landslide, a 72-29 majority last time I checked. From a political perspective, I didn't see anything that really distinguished the two candidates,, in fact, other than personal interests, the two agreed on most major political issues.

[Rvaughn]

Perhaps there was the confluence of several things. Could age have played a role? Lightfoot is 56 and Preckwinkle is 72. Those who like to vote for historic firsts could have seen the value of getting two firsts instead of just one. Some reports say the Preckwinkle campaign angered some voters with a TV ad attacking how Lightfoot investigated the critical failure of the 911 call center regarding the 2004 West Side fire. Nevertheless, the landslide of that degree seems unusual to me, when both candidates seemed quite alike.

[Sandy]

Preckwinkle is already serving as the Cook County Board Chairperson, a position equivalent to being the "mayor" of the county though the jurisdictions are somewhat different and that may have had something to do with it. The overall turnout came in under 35%, so it was really a matter of who got out the vote. Both candidates expected to do well among the base of African American voters on the south side and it appeared that Preckwinkle focused her campaign there while Lightfoot went after densely populated wards downtown and in the high rise districts along the north lake shore, and the wards in north central, north and northwest Chicago where there is a combination of large numbers of under 40 voters with the old Daley base. Chicago is gentrifying and she had a pretty good sized group of people out on the streets in neighborhoods where there's a lot of multi-family, high-end condos and apartments. Preckwinkle appeared to run out of money after the primary, no yard signs, no television or radio ads. Almost all of her appearances on the news were in locations on the Southside.

[Rvaughn]