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      Chicago Votes for Change

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      After a crime surge, Chicago voters have ousted their current mayor.Chicago’s mayor race has joined the growing list of evidence that Americans are unhappy about crime.Lori Lightfoot, the incumbent, yesterday became the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose a re-election campaign. Lightfoot — a progressive in her first term — finished third in the initial stage of this year’s campaign, in which nine candidates were trying to qualify for a runoff in April. Lightfoot received only 17 percent of the vote, according to the latest count.The runoff will be between Paul Vallas, a former head of the city’s school system who ran on a tough-on-crime message, and Brandon Johnson, a progressive county commissioner who previously worked as a teacher and union organizer. Vallas finished with 34 percent of the vote and Johnson finished second with 20 percent.Brandon Johnson talking to supporters yesterday.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesCrime in Chicago has surged since the pandemic began, with the number of major crimes 33 percent higher last year than in 2019. The murder rate has fallen from its 2021 peak but only modestly, and robberies and car thefts have kept rising recently. In a recent poll, nearly two-thirds of Chicago residents said that they felt unsafe.“Chicagoans are genuinely frustrated by the state of the city, and crime is vastly overshadowing any other concerns,” Julie Bosman, The Times’s Chicago bureau chief, told me. “In a city known for its powerful leaders, it’s unsurprising that a lot of Chicagoans see this as Lightfoot’s failure. Many voters I’ve talked to see this mayoral race as a chance to reset.”New York and Oregon, tooCrime has been a particularly vexing issue for progressive Democrats, both in Chicago and nationally. After police officers in Minneapolis murdered George Floyd in 2020, progressive activists and politicians called for both reforms to reduce police violence and reduced funding for police departments. Many of the proposed reforms — including body cameras and greater accountability for police misbehavior — are popular, but defunding the police is unpopular even among most Democratic voters, polls show.It became more unpopular after crime began to soar during the pandemic. Across 27 cities that publicly report crime data, the murder rate last year was 34 percent higher than it had been in 2019, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.Chart shows 12-month averages. | Source: Council on Criminal JusticeProgressives have struggled to develop a persuasive response. Some have suggested that the crime increase is mostly a right-wing talking point, but the statistics say otherwise. And voters evidently agree with the statistics:In New York City, Eric Adams won the mayor’s race in 2021 by focusing his campaign on crime. In the Democratic primary, he lost only one of the city’s five boroughs: Manhattan, the wealthiest.In New York State last year, Republican candidates in the midterms focused on crime and did much better than usual. Democratic candidates often tried to change the subject. “I think those who stated, ‘Don’t talk about crime,’ it was an insult to Black and brown communities where a lot of this crime was playing out,” Adams said after the election. Nancy Pelosi told The Times’s Maureen Dowd that Democrats might have maintained control of the House of Representatives if the party’s candidates in New York had taken crime more seriously.Republicans also fared well last year in Oregon, where the largest city — Portland — has become a symbol of post-pandemic disorder. Between 2019 and 2022, murders nearly tripled, vandalism incidents nearly doubled and car thefts rose 69 percent.The Bass modelKaren Bass, the recently elected mayor of Los Angeles, has developed arguably the most successful progressive message on crime. A former community organizer who spent 12 years in the House of Representatives, Bass defeated a more conservative candidate not by downplaying crime concerns but by talking about them frequently. Bass herself was a burglary victim last year.She has tried to strike a balance by calling for both the hiring of hundreds of additional police officers and tougher punishments for abusive officers. “We must stop crimes in progress and hold people accountable,” she said in her inaugural address. “Let me be so bold as to add that we can prevent crime and community violence by addressing the social, the health and the economic conditions that compromise a safe environment.”The Chicago runoff will become the next test of whether a progressive message on crime can win in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. As was the case in Los Angeles, the more progressive candidate — Johnson — is Black, while the more conservative one — Vallas — is white.In the past, Johnson supported calls to defund the police but he has tried to avoid the subject during the mayoral campaign. He has instead emphasized his plans to build more housing, expand pre-K and increase funding for social services. He is likely to portray Vallas as a conservative who is out of touch with Chicago. The local police union, whose top official is a Donald Trump supporter, has endorsed Vallas.“No matter where you live, no matter what you look like, you deserve to have a better, stronger, safer Chicago,” Johnson said at his election night party last night.As the chief executive of the Chicago schools, Vallas expanded the number of charter schools. As a mayoral candidate, he has focused overwhelmingly on public safety, calling it “a basic human right for Chicagoans,” and promising an expansion of the police force, and described the city as being in disarray. He is likely to emphasize Johnson’s previous support for defunding the police.“We will make Chicago the safest city in America,” Vallas said last night.Related: Read The Times’s coverage of the election, and see the results for all nine candidates.Other politics newsThe Supreme Court’s conservative justices seemed skeptical of President Biden’s plan to forgive student debt.Ron DeSantis will soon visit Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire, another sign that he will run for president.Republicans in Congress questioned military officials on money sent to Ukraine, signaling concerns over future aid.Biden is betting government aid can revitalize semiconductor production in the U.S. and thwart a rising China.THE LATEST NEWSInternationalDestroyed train cars near Larissa, Greece.Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York TimesTwo trains collided in Greece, killing at least 36 people.Bola Tinubu, the 70-year-old candidate of the governing party, won Nigeria’s presidential election. His opponents say the contest was rigged.The biggest tank battle of the war in Ukraine so far was a defeat for Russia.King Charles hosted an E.U. leader for tea on the day of a trade deal, upsetting critics who felt his behavior was too political.An Israeli raid to capture Palestinian gunmen turned into one of the most violent encounters in the West Bank in decades, a Times video investigation shows.A Mediterranean cruise ship has become a shelter for people displaced by the earthquake in Turkey.BusinessA co-founder of Sam Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto exchange FTX pleaded guilty to criminal charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.Communities in the United States have pushed back against the spread of dollar stores.Republicans are calling environmentally conscious investing “woke capitalism,” pulling businesses into partisan politics.Twitter outages have risen as Elon Musk has slashed the company’s work force.Other Big StoriesMany undocumented immigrants are leaving the U.S. after decades and returning to their countries of origin.The police charged a 23-year-old man with murder over a sidewalk shooting in St. Louis. A witness captured the killing on video.OpinionsIf Nigeria is to have a functional democracy, its people need radical transparency from election officials, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says.Lebanon’s economic crisis has forced citizens to become bank robbers to access their own money, this video argues.Labs that study viruses need to become more secure, David Wallace-Wells writes.MORNING READSAddison’s Walk in Oxford, England.Max Miechowski for The New York TimesThe Lion and the Hobbit: Discover where C.S. Lewis wrote.Comfort zone: Eugene Levy hates traveling. That’s what makes his travel show work.Advice from Wirecutter: Clean your air fryer every time you use it.Lives Lived: Charles Pernasilice wasn’t supposed to be at the Attica Correctional Facility. But his temporary stay there coincided with the deadliest prison uprising in U.S. history, which would haunt him for the rest of his life. He died at 70.SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETICLawsuit: L.A. County agreed to pay Vanessa Bryant and her daughters nearly $30 million in a settlement over photos shared from the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash.Jersey numbers: The Eagles are proposing to allow players to wear No. 0 again. It hasn’t been allowed since 1973.A dwindling chance: LeBron James suffered a foot injury that could sideline him for weeks, a potential blow to the Lakers’ postseason chances.ARTS AND IDEAS Pink Floyd in 1973.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesThe power of ‘Dark Side’Mortality, madness and greed: On “The Dark Side of the Moon,” released 50 years ago today, Pink Floyd transformed grim subjects into indelible rock music.The album’s sonic experimentation — the ticking clocks of “Time,” the soaring vocals of “The Great Gig in the Sky” — have had an enduring appeal. The record spent almost 14 years on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart, and it remains popular on streaming platforms. “‘Dark Side’ was an album that worked equally well to show off a new stereo,” the Times critic Jon Pareles writes, “or to be contemplated in private communion with headphones and a joint.”PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookKelly Marshall for The New York TimesLoad up corn tortillas with spiced shrimp and red cabbage.What to ReadA new biography shows Karl Lagerfeld to be more business whiz than artist.What to Listen toFive minutes that will make you love jazz piano.Late NightStephen Colbert joked about Fox News hosts’ texts.Now Time to PlayThe pangram from yesterday’s Spelling Bee was jailbird. Here is today’s puzzle.Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Singer Simone (four letters).And here’s today’s Wordle.Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — DavidP.S. The word “geezerishness” appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday, in a review of John Sayles’s new novel.Here’s today’s front page.“The Daily” is about abortion pills.Matthew Cullen, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. More

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      How Paul Vallas Became the Chicago Mayoral Election Front-Runner

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      Mr. Vallas, a former public school executive with more conservative views on crime and education, will face Brandon Johnson, a progressive county commissioner, in an April runoff.CHICAGO — When Paul Vallas ran for mayor of Chicago four years ago, it did not go well. He finished in a distant ninth place, winning only 5 percent of the vote and barely registering as an electoral afterthought.But this time, after finishing well ahead of eight other candidates on Tuesday in the first round of balloting, Mr. Vallas has emerged as the front-runner. He will face Brandon Johnson in an April 4 runoff to lead America’s third-largest city.That matchup gives Chicagoans a choice between two Democrats with starkly different philosophies and life experiences: The younger, unabashedly progressive Mr. Johnson, a county commissioner and teacher who is Black; and the older, far less liberal Mr. Vallas, a white man who is a former public school executive and vocal supporter of law enforcement.Mr. Vallas’s reversal of political fortune since his defeat four years ago reflects a much different electoral mood in Chicago and the appeal of tough-on-crime policies for urban voters. Though his personal style and story are different, Mr. Vallas’s platform has similarities to the message Mayor Eric Adams of New York City used to win election in 2021.“Public safety is the fundamental right of every American: It is a civil right and it is the principal responsibility of government,” Mr. Vallas said Tuesday night in a speech. “And we will have a safe Chicago. We will make Chicago the safest city in America.”Mr. Vallas, 69, grew up on Chicago’s South Side and is a familiar figure in local government. He led Chicago Public Schools from 1995 to 2001 before leaving to run the school systems in Philadelphia, New Orleans and Bridgeport, Conn. In those positions, he cultivated a reputation as a crisis manager and charter school supporter willing to take on hard jobs and implement sweeping changes, an approach that garnered a mix of praise and criticism.Paul Vallas, former superintendent of schools, visiting students as he toured the campus of A.P. Tureaud Elementary School in New Orleans in 2007.Cheryl Gerber for The New York TimesBut it was Mr. Vallas’s hard-line message on crime and policing that elevated him in this year’s nine-candidate mayoral field. After unsuccessful runs for governor in 2002, lieutenant governor in 2014 and mayor in 2019, Mr. Vallas positioned himself this year well to the political right of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and even further to the right of Mr. Johnson.On Chicago’s influential political left, the prospect of a Vallas mayoralty has been met with fear, derision and implications that he is really more of a Republican than the lifelong Democrat he claims to be.“We cannot have this man as the mayor of the city of Chicago,” Mr. Johnson, 46, whose campaign is backed by the powerful and politically liberal Chicago Teachers Union, told his supporters on Tuesday night. “Our children and families across Chicago can’t afford it.”Supporters of Mr. Johnson said they appreciated his approach on education and policing. Mr. Johnson at one point suggested that he agreed with the movement to reduce funding for police departments, though he later backtracked.“I like his opinions about funding the police differently, not defunding but doing it differently,” said Carla Moulton, 61, a legal secretary who voted for Mr. Johnson.Mr. Vallas was the only white politician in the field, which included seven Black candidates and one Hispanic contender. Chicago, which has a history of racial and ethnic groups sometimes voting as blocs, has roughly equal numbers of Black, white and Hispanic residents.Progressives united against Mr. Vallas because of his views on the police, his track record supporting charter schools and, most recently, a Chicago Tribune report that his Twitter account liked an array of offensive posts on Twitter about Ms. Lightfoot. (Mr. Vallas suggested his account was breached.) Mr. Vallas also said in a television interview in 2009 that he considered himself more of a Republican than a Democrat, a strike against him in the eyes of many voters in overwhelmingly liberal Chicago.Police officers in Chicago watched as Chicago Public Schools students staged a walkout and a rally in front of school district headquarters in downtown Chicago. Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesAs he made his case to voters, Mr. Vallas welcomed an endorsement from the local Fraternal Order of Police, called for the replacement of Chicago Police Department leaders and put forth a plan to improve arrest rates and prosecute more misdemeanor crimes. His campaign website described Chicago as a near dystopia in which “city leadership has surrendered us all to a criminal element that acts with seeming impunity in treating unsuspecting, innocent people as prey.”For many voters, unnerved by homicide rates that soared to generational highs during the coronavirus pandemic, that message resonated.“I was never scared before,” said Martha Wicker, 61, who voted for Mr. Vallas. “Now I don’t want to be on the train alone when it’s dark.”Mike Curran, 50, a real estate broker, said he also voted for Mr. Vallas because of public safety concerns.“I’m very disappointed in the last four years,” Mr. Curran said. “I grew up in Detroit and know what can happen to a city. I voted for Vallas because I’m extremely fed up with crime in the neighborhood.”During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mr. Vallas became a sought-after leader for school systems in crisis. He took over Chicago Public Schools in the years after the district was referred to as the country’s worst. He led the Philadelphia school system and expanded charter schools after the state took over the district. And after Hurricane Katrina, he oversaw the rebuilding of the New Orleans school system.Creg Williams, who worked as a school district administrator under Mr. Vallas in multiple cities, described his former boss as an energetic, determined leader who was open to criticism but steadfast in advancing his vision.“He looks at problems and he thinks about, ‘How do I innovate and how do I create? How do I make this change, and make that change a lasting change?’” said Dr. Williams, who later worked as a school superintendent in other districts and who has supported Mr. Vallas’s campaign.During his stint with the Chicago school district, Mr. Vallas had a cordial relationship with the Chicago Teachers Union, an organization that battled repeatedly with the last two Chicago mayors and that helped elevate Mr. Johnson’s profile in this year’s campaign.Mr. Vallas turning in his ballot at a Chicago elementary school on Tuesday.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesDeborah Lynch, whose tenure as president of the teachers’ union overlapped briefly with Mr. Vallas’s stint as chief executive of the Chicago schools, said she appreciated Mr. Vallas’s approach even though she did not agree with him on every issue.“He was a leader with lots of energy, lots of ideas, lots of plans,” said Ms. Lynch, who now lives in suburban Chicago and who supports Mr. Vallas’s mayoral campaign. “Some of those plans went as intended. Some, you know, were lessons learned. But I think who he was then, and who he is now: He has a vision, but he also backs up his vision with specific plans.”His work, however, has also brought criticism. Mr. Vallas was appointed in 2017 to the board of trustees at Chicago State University,which was struggling financially.After arriving there, he quickly moved into a top administrative role, where he was charged with helping set the course for the university’s future. But as it became clear he was planning to run for mayor in 2019, he was forced out. The Rev. Marshall Hatch Sr., who at the time was the chairman of the university’s board, said he believed Mr. Vallas “didn’t help at all” and had “no impact,” though others on campus defended his work.“It didn’t make a lot of sense, other than the school was in trouble and it looked like the school’s in such a crisis that, hey, let’s throw a fixer like Paul over there,” Mr. Hatch said. “It didn’t last long.”Julie Bosman More

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      Chicago Municipal Election Results 2023

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      Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press.Produced by Michael Andre, Neil Berg, Irineo Cabreros, Nate Cohn, Lindsey Rogers Cook, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Andrew Fischer, Will Houp, Aaron Krolik, Jasmine C. Lee, Ilana Marcus, Charlie Smart and Isaac White. Editing by Wilson Andrews, William P. Davis, Amy Hughes, Ben Koski and Allison McCartney. More

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      Why Chicago’s Mayoral Election Matters, Even if You Don’t Live in Chicago

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      America’s cities increasingly face similar problems, particularly worries about crime and hangovers from the pandemic. That’s why the mayor’s election in Chicago on Tuesday is about more than Chicago.CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot faces eight challengers in a fierce mayoral election and risks being ousted from City Hall after one term. Here’s why the election, at a time of widespread unease in the nation’s cities, reflects issues that are resonating around the country.The race is a referendum on crime and policing.On the campaign trail and in debates, the election in Chicago has been driven by one issue above all others: crime.Under Ms. Lightfoot, who was elected in 2019, homicide rates soared to generational highs, an increase that was most deeply felt in pockets of the South and West Sides that have historically been plagued by gun violence. And residents throughout the city say they are unsettled by a spike in robberies, muggings, carjackings and other property crimes, and they have placed the blame on Ms. Lightfoot.She is facing her most serious competition from a tough-on-crime candidate, Paul Vallas, a former public schools executive who began attacking her record on public safety early in the campaign.The same political dynamic has played out in mayoral races in New York City and Los Angeles, with varying results: Mayor Eric Adams of New York City, a former police captain, won office in 2021 amid widespread concerns about crime. But last fall, Los Angeles voters chose Karen Bass, a veteran Democratic congresswoman, over Rick Caruso, a billionaire mall developer who spent close to $100 million on a campaign that focused directly on concerns over crime and disorder.Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago met with Mayor Eric Adams of New York last year to discuss crime-fighting strategies.Tyler Pasciak Lariviere/Chicago Sun-Times, via Associated PressMs. Lightfoot has crisscrossed Chicago telling voters that crime is down in the city and that her focus on the issue is yielding results: Homicides dropped in 2022 after rising in the two previous years. For many voters, it may be coming too late.The next Chicago mayor could reshape downtown.“Make no little plans,” Chicagoans like to say, quoting the city planner and architect Daniel Burnham, whose vision transformed Chicago’s lakefront and skyline.Cities around the county are struggling to redefine and revitalize their downtowns in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. And whoever wins the mayoral election in Chicago will have the opportunity to make very big plans for the city’s downtown, including its most prominent neighborhood, the Loop. The area was battered during the pandemic and has yet to fully recover.Ms. Lightfoot has already made proposals that could nudge the Loop away from its identity as a center for office workers, and toward becoming a more residential neighborhood and hub of cultural life. (The Chicago Loop Alliance, a business advocacy group, says the area is already well on its way: There are now more people living in the Loop than before the pandemic, reflecting growth of about 9 percent since 2020.)One plan introduced under the Lightfoot administration addresses the high vacancy rates for commercial space in the Loop, calling for older office buildings on LaSalle Street in the heart of Chicago’s business district to be turned into apartments and condominiums, including affordable housing. If the plan is successful, it may become a model for other big cities that find themselves with excess commercial real estate as remote workers continue to balk at returning downtown.Whoever wins the mayoral election in Chicago will have the chance to shape downtown Chicago as it adapts to the effects of the pandemic.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBig-city politics are in flux.Mayoral elections in Chicago are officially nonpartisan, but none of the nine candidates on the ballot on Tuesday is a Republican. (In the 2020 presidential election, 83 percent of Chicago voters voted Democratic.) Assuming none wins an outright majority on Tuesday, the top two finishers in the race will advance to a runoff on April 4. Who those candidates turn out to be may offer a glimpse into the direction of urban politics in post-pandemic America.Ms. Lightfoot has been attacked from both the right and the left, and her challengers fit in familiar niches on the national Democratic spectrum. Mr. Vallas has attracted support from more conservative voters, especially in heavily white wards on the Northwest and Southwest Sides, where many police officers, firefighters and other city workers live. He has also gained support from Democrats who voted for Ms. Lightfoot in 2019 but are now fed up over crime and are willing to vote for a more conservative candidate.The mayor also faces serious challenges from the liberal wing of the party, especially from Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the liberal Chicago Teachers Union. Mr. Johnson has gained momentum in the last several weeks, polls suggest, as progressive voters who are unwilling to give Ms. Lightfoot another chance have searched for an alternative. But at a time when public safety is the No. 1 issue for many voters, Mr. Johnson’s previous support for reducing police funding — a stance he later backtracked from — may complicate his mayoral bid. More

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      Chicago Mayoral Race: Lori Lightfoot Faces Challengers

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      Mayor Lori Lightfoot faces a wide field of challengers on Tuesday, including one front-runner who has portrayed Chicago as a city in disarray.CHICAGO — Chicagoans were heading to the polls on Tuesday morning to vote in highly contested mayoral and City Council races that have largely focused on crime, policing and the performance of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is seeking a second term leading the nation’s third-largest city.Ms. Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor who ran as a change agent vowing to root out corruption and reform the Chicago Police Department, won 74 percent of the vote in the final balloting when elected four years ago, a favorite of progressives who hailed her historic victory as the city’s first Black, female mayor.But she has faced widespread dissatisfaction from voters since, and many have thrown their support to other candidates: Eight challengers have lined up against her, and unless one candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote — a highly unlikely scenario — the top two finishers on Tuesday will advance to a runoff on April 4.Among the front-runners in the race is Paul Vallas, a Democrat with more conservative views on crime and education, who has portrayed Chicago as being in a state of disarray.Taylor Glascock for The New York TimesPolls suggest that Ms. Lightfoot, whose rivals have positioned themselves to both her political left and right, is in a tight contest for one of those spots. Voters have said in surveys that issues driving the race include crime, the economy, education and immigration.Perhaps most threatening to Ms. Lightfoot’s re-election chances is the spike in homicides and shootings in 2020 and 2021, and civil unrest and looting that scarred retailers, including those on the famed Magnificent Mile. In 2021, robberies, thefts and burglaries increased from the year before, leaving many Chicagoans unsettled about the direction of the city.Monica Jain, a property manager who lives in the Gold Coast neighborhood near downtown Chicago, left a polling place on Monday and said that she had heard Ms. Lightfoot talk about how some crime rates had now decreased. But, Ms. Jain said, “I’m worried about the South and West Sides,” where gun violence is most acute.Among the front-runners in the race is Paul Vallas, a Democrat with more conservative views on crime and education, who has portrayed Chicago as being in a state of disarray. Running with an endorsement from the local Fraternal Order of Police, he has called for expanding the police force, improving arrest rates for serious crimes and expanding charter schools.Brandon Johnson, a mayoral candidate and Democratic county board commissioner, answered a question from a Kenwood Academy High School student at a mayoral forum on Saturday.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesBut in making her final pitch to voters this weekend, Ms. Lightfoot pointed to investments in long-neglected neighborhoods and made the case that the city had emerged from the coronavirus pandemic in a strong position.“If you care about making sure that we continue to right historic wrongs and invest in areas of our city that have been without for far too long, that’s on the ballot,” Ms. Lightfoot told a crowd at a union hall on Saturday.Voters appeared unsure of whether they were willing to give her another chance. Chicago mayors have wide-ranging powers, even compared with mayors in New York City and Los Angeles: They oversee the sprawling public-transit system, Police and Fire Departments, schools, parks and other agencies. And when crime spikes or potholes go unfilled, Chicagoans tend to blame their mayor.Ms. Lightfoot, 60, has faced a cascade of crises since taking office. In 2019, she clashed with the powerful teachers’ union, leading to an 11-day strike, the longest in decades. Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit, sending unemployment soaring and leaving skyscrapers in the Loop mostly empty of workers and Chicago businesses struggling to survive.The economy has since rebounded, and downtown Chicago is attracting tourists and conventions again. But Ms. Lightfoot appears to have made far more enemies than friends as mayor, struggles to find support on the City Council and has gained a reputation as a pugilistic and mercurial leader.A voter filled out her electronic ballot on Monday in the final hour of early voting at the Welles Park polling site in Chicago.Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated PressMr. Vallas, 69, has taken a lead in the polls, but has also been dogged by ideological inconsistencies. He said in a television interview in 2009 that he considered himself more of a Republican than a Democrat, a strike against Mr. Vallas in the eyes of many voters in overwhelmingly liberal Chicago. Last week, The Chicago Tribune reported that Mr. Vallas’s Twitter account had liked a series of tweets that used insulting and racist language; Mr. Vallas suggested that hackers were to blame.Ms. Lightfoot is also fighting a challenge from Brandon Johnson, a Democratic county board commissioner who has been endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union. Mr. Johnson staked out a position to the left of Ms. Lightfoot on policing, at one point suggesting that he agreed with the movement to reduce funding to police departments, though he later backtracked.Another contender, Representative Jesús G. García, is also competing for votes from progressives: He traces his Chicago political experience back to the campaign to elect the city’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983. Mr. García, who was born in Mexico, would be Chicago’s first Hispanic mayor. In 2015, he ran for mayor against the incumbent, Rahm Emanuel, winning enough votes to force a runoff.Polls suggest that Willie Wilson, a businessman with a base of support from working-class Black voters, is also within striking distance of the runoff.Mitch Smith More

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      As Lightfoot Tries for Second Term, Jabs Go From Friendly to Harsh

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      When the pandemic took hold, Chicago was awash in affectionate memes featuring Lori Lightfoot, the city’s stern, no-nonsense new mayor. Since then, the joke has worn off.CHICAGO — Mayor Lori Lightfoot was standing guard all over Chicago — virtually, anyway.In March 2020, in the early, frightening days of the coronavirus pandemic when city officials had closed down public spaces to stop the spread of the virus, a meme began circulating on social media with Ms. Lightfoot as the star: an image of her stern, unsmiling face Photoshopped around Chicago.There was Ms. Lightfoot in front of the giant, stainless steel Bean sculpture in Millennium Park, guarding the entrance to beaches along Lake Michigan and standing in a parking garage behind Ferris Bueller as he tooled around the city in a lipstick-red Ferrari.“Lori Lightfoot don’t play,” wrote one Twitter user, with an image of Ms. Lightfoot’s glowering face superimposed over picnickers in a Seurat painting that hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago.Because she’s not a hero. She’s a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A Lightfoot. pic.twitter.com/UzxT1wyozo— lu (@SquantsIsland) March 30, 2020
      At first, the real-life mayor was baffled by it. But after her City Hall aides explained that the meme was an affectionate nod to her tough persona and no-nonsense countenance, she warmed to the scolding Lightfoots that began to spring up all over the city, cardboard cutouts in the windows of apartments and shuttered stores. Chicagoans needed a laugh, and the image of the mayor — diminutive, a little surly, dressed in fedoras and trousers so long as they puddled at the ankles — had provided.But after Covid-19, a crime surge and a tough four years in office, what began as something friendly now also reflects harsher perceptions of the mayor and her time in office. Ms. Lightfoot at Wrigley Field in Chicago, in April 2020. The Chicago Cubs used Wrigley Field as a food distribution hub to help support Covid-19 relief efforts.Nam Y. Huh/Associated PressThe pandemic dominated life in Chicago during Ms. Lightfoot’s term as mayor. Lyndon French for The New York TimesThis week, Ms. Lightfoot is in a fight for survival as she runs for a second term as mayor in a city that has yet to recover from its pandemic-era struggles. The blunt, tough-talking persona that earned Ms. Lightfoot early affection and respect turned into something else: the image of a mayor with an exhausting capacity for feuds and insults, whether aimed at her own staff, city employees or fellow elected officials.She is one of at least four candidates viewed as having a good chance to make it into a runoff election and could very well lead the current nine-person field. But even some supporters now worry that she may have alienated many people she needs as allies. Those include business owners, City Council members and voters, some of whom are fed up with her tone and substance on issues like crime, policing and public education — and are turning to other mayoral candidates.Take Bruce Heyman, a former ambassador to Canada, who remembers during the pandemic when his children printed a picture of the stern Ms. Lightfoot and hung it on the refrigerator in his Chicago home — a wry warning not to eat the food inside.“She was endearing, there was no doubt about it,” he said. “She was somebody we had a lot of hope for.”Mr. Heyman, a former partner at Goldman Sachs who worked closely with the former mayors Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel, voted for Ms. Lightfoot in 2019. But he grew frustrated and disappointed with the mayor in the years since. During the pandemic and riots that tore through downtown after George Floyd’s murder, Mr. Heyman watched as Chicago’s problems began to multiply.“She didn’t tackle them as an effective leader — she began a very defensive, authoritarian style,” he said. “We’ve had strong mayors in our city before. But they got stuff done, and they were able to communicate and collaborate.”Andre Vasquez, a member of the City Council who represents a ward on the North Side, said that council members called her “the great unifier,” since so many members were lined up against her.“When there is disagreement, she takes it personally in a way that isn’t helpful,” Mr. Vasquez said. “It’s always felt very personal coming from her. And she can be dismissive and condescending.”Ms. Lightfoot has responded to critiques of her style by invoking previous mayors and saying she is no different.“I personally get asked this question of, ‘Well, Mayor, you know your relationships with City Council, shouldn’t you be nicer?’ Which I have to laugh at,” Ms. Lightfoot said last year. “When I think about who my predecessors were — I worked for Rich Daley and I was around Rahm a lot — it’s not like they won contests for Mr. Congeniality.”Chicago public school employees, teachers, students and supporters rallied outside City Hall, demanding increased funding from Ms. Lightfoot’s administration to lower class sizes and hire more support staff.Scott Heins for The New York TimesMs. Lightfoot spoke a news conference in 2019 as striking public school workers accused her of failing to deliver adequate funding and support.Scott Heins for The New York TimesAnd to many voters, her message and record resonated far more than her leadership style. Giavonni Downing, who works in marketing and lives on the South Side, said she liked Ms. Lightfoot’s message on investing in neighborhoods with fewer resources and thought the mayor deserved another term. “Covid hit, so, realistically, whatever you thought you were going to do when you got in office, all that had to go on the back burner,” said Ms. Downing, 40.In the final days of her campaign, the mayor has crisscrossed the city, trying to shore up support in neighborhoods that were once full of enthusiastic Lightfoot voters.On Friday afternoon, Ms. Lightfoot and her wife, Amy Eshleman, stopped in a record store in the Andersonville neighborhood on the Far North Side, an L.G.B.T.Q.-friendly community where rainbow flags peek out of storefront windows and hang above the porches of greystone buildings.Four years ago, Andersonville was a power center of Ms. Lightfoot’s support. Now many front yards are decorated with signs bearing her opponents’ names: Brandon Johnson, a county board commissioner; Paul Vallas, a former schools executive; and Representative Jesús G. García, a congressman from Illinois.Chris Hawkins, a manager at a nearby shop on Clark Street, was in the record store browsing when Ms. Lightfoot stopped in. Mr. Hawkins, who was born and raised in Chicago, said he would vote for Ms. Lightfoot again. She took care of the city during a trying time, he said, and she had been judged harshly because she is a woman.“We’re living in a society where women are marginalized and not perceived as leaders — they’re perceived as a stereotype,” he said. “I look at crime and stuff that’s happening in the city, and I just think, it’s easy to point the finger at one person. This is a mayor who’s taken on a lot.”Mitch Smith More

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      What to Know About Chicago’s Mayoral Election

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      Mayor Lori Lightfoot is seeking a second term, but she faces a wide field of challengers who have attacked her record on crime, policing and education.CHICAGO — As residents of Chicago prepare to elect a mayor, they are staring at a highly uncertain picture: a race so wide open that even the incumbent, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who won every ward in the city in the final balloting four years ago, is not assured a spot in an expected runoff election.Chicagoans will pick on Tuesday among nine candidates at a pivotal time to lead the city, which has wrestled since the pandemic with a spike in homicides and an emptier downtown. At least four of the candidates are seen as serious contenders to make it to an April 4 runoff, and Ms. Lightfoot finds herself in between candidates casting themselves to her political left, and also to her right.In the final days of the race, Ms. Lightfoot has attempted to embrace her spot in the middle, arguing that the city needs to stay the course with her. Before a crowd at a union hall over the weekend, she accused one opponent of being an undercover Republican. Another, she said, would raise taxes and cut policing.In addition to Ms. Lightfoot, the top tier of candidates includes Jesús G. García, a progressive congressman; Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner endorsed by the local teachers’ union; and Paul Vallas, a former public school executive with a far more conservative platform on policing and education.Those candidates all describe themselves as Democrats, an unofficial prerequisite for winning citywide office, but have vastly different visions for Chicago. Here is what is shaping the race to lead the country’s third-largest city:The incumbent is on shaky ground.Ms. Lightfoot leveraged outsider status and a promise for sweeping reforms to win her seat in 2019, becoming the first Black woman and first openly gay person to serve as Chicago’s mayor.But she will enter this Election Day with uncertain prospects, dogged by diminished popularity, homicide rates that soared to generational highs and frequent feuds with labor unions and City Council members. Her campaign’s own polling in the weeks before the election showed her in the lead, but with only 24 percent of the vote. Ms. Lightfoot has spoken about a need to attract more people to Chicago. But while the city’s population grew slightly between 2010 and 2020, census estimates show that the number of residents has declined since then.Mayor Lori Lightfoot answered questions and defended her policies on education, crime and other issues at a gathering on the city’s North Side.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesSupporters of the mayor at a campaign rally. Ms. Lightfoot won all 50 city wards in the 2019 runoff election, but she enters this Election Day with uncertain prospects.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesFacing a crowded field, Ms. Lightfoot has portrayed herself this time not as a political outsider but rather as a serious, experienced leader who stabilized Chicago after being dealt a lousy hand. She has emphasized her investments in long-overlooked neighborhoods, defended her handling of the virus and noted that homicides have declined from their pandemic peak.Paul Vallas wants to talk about crime.When Mr. Vallas, a former chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, ran for mayor four years ago, he received just over 30,000 votes and finished in a distant ninth place.But this time, he has emerged as perhaps Ms. Lightfoot’s biggest electoral threat by portraying Chicago as a city in crisis and promising to crack down on lawbreakers. His campaign website describes the city in almost dystopian terms, saying it appears Chicago “has been surrendered to a criminal element that acts with seeming impunity in treating unsuspecting, innocent people as prey.”Mr. Vallas has called for increasing the number of police officers, replacing the police superintendent and improving arrest rates for serious offenses. But as he has made electoral inroads, emphasizing some of the issues that Mayor Eric Adams of New York City campaigned on in 2021, some have questioned whether he is out of step with Chicago’s overwhelmingly Democratic electorate.In a city with a powerful teachers’ union and a long-troubled Police Department, Mr. Vallas’s calls to invest in charter schools and prosecute more misdemeanor crimes have unnerved left-leaning residents and led Ms. Lightfoot to suggest his true loyalties are with the Republican Party. Then, in the final run-up to the election, The Chicago Tribune reported that Mr. Vallas’s Twitter account had liked an array of tweets about the mayor that used offensive language or described Ms. Lightfoot as a man. Mr. Vallas, who calls himself a lifelong Democrat, said he did not like those posts and suggested that his Twitter account was breached.The Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas received the endorsement of the police union, which could be crucial in consolidating conservative support but could also be a liability to some voters. Scott Olson/Getty ImagesRepresentative Jesús G. García greeting commuters in the Pilsen neighborhood. Eight years ago, he qualified for the runoff by uniting Hispanic voters with political progressives of all backgrounds.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesKey union endorsements could cut both ways.Two powerful labor unions that Ms. Lightfoot clashed with repeatedly — the conservative local branch of the Fraternal Order of Police and the liberal Chicago Teachers Union — have steered their supporters to two of her opponents. How much those endorsements will help or hurt remains an open question.Mr. Vallas received the police union endorsement, which could be crucial in consolidating support among right-leaning voters and supporters of the police. But that endorsement has been used as an attack line by Ms. Lightfoot, and it may be a liability among Chicagoans who do not trust the Police Department or who disapprove of the union’s frequently brash rhetoric and coziness with Republican politicians, including Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.The Chicago Teachers Union, basically the political opposite of the police union, gave its endorsement to Mr. Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and teacher running on an unabashedly progressive platform.The teachers’ union has emerged over the last decade as a powerful player in Chicago politics, engaging in repeated work stoppages, fighting with the last two mayors and putting forth a liberal vision for the city that extends beyond education issues. Its endorsement is now a coveted seal of approval on the progressive left. But after a bruising fight between that union and Ms. Lightfoot over Covid-19 school reopenings and precautions, and in a city where many residents name crime and public safety as their top concern, it is not yet clear what impact the teachers’ endorsement might have.Race has long been a factor in Chicago politics.Chicago, which has a long history of racial and ethnic groups voting as blocs, has roughly equal numbers of white, Black and Hispanic residents. This year’s mayoral field has seven Black contenders (including Ms. Lightfoot and Mr. Johnson), one white candidate (Mr. Vallas) and one Hispanic candidate (Mr. García).Beyond the four candidates leading in the latest polls, others retain significant support and hopes of squeezing into the runoff. Willie Wilson, a businessman who is locally famous for giving away gasoline and $100 bills, finished in fourth place in the 2019 mayoral election and is running again this year on a promise to clamp down on crime. Though Mr. Wilson, who is Black, has a strong base of working-class Black supporters, he has struggled in past campaigns to win votes outside of the South and West Sides.Some Black leaders have expressed concern that the makeup of the field could dilute the voting power of Black residents and lessen the chances of electing a Black mayor. In parts of the city with more Black and Hispanic residents, voter turnout is sometimes lower than in North Side wards where many white people live.Other Black candidates in the race include Kam Buckner, a state legislator; Ja’Mal Green, a civil rights activist; and Sophia King and Roderick Sawyer, both members of the City Council.But while race plays a role in Chicago politics, that role is not necessarily decisive.Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, is running on an unabashedly progressive platform.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesA sign for the candidate Willie Wilson on a corner in the Chinatown neighborhood. Mr. Wilson, a businessman, finished fourth in the 2019 election.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesFour years ago, two Black women, Ms. Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle, built multiracial coalitions and emerged from a large, racially diverse slate of candidates to make the runoff. And eight years ago, Mr. García, who would be Chicago’s first Hispanic mayor, qualified for the runoff by uniting Hispanic voters with political progressives of all backgrounds.Electoral suspense has been a rarity in the past.Chicago voters of a certain age came to expect, for better or worse, a level of continuity at City Hall. Richard J. Daley led the city for more than 20 years, from the 1950s into the ’70s, as did his son Richard M. Daley, who served as mayor from 1989 until 2011. Elections still came around every four years, but they became more of a formality than a referendum.Even when the younger Mr. Daley left office 12 years ago, there was little uncertainty about who would take over. Rahm Emanuel, fresh off a stint as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, returned to Chicago and won a majority of the vote, clinching the job without a runoff. (If no single candidate gets a majority of votes in the first election, the top two finishers advance to a runoff.)Since then, mayoral elections have become far less predictable. Mr. Emanuel won a second term in 2015 but was forced into a runoff in a surprisingly close race with Mr. García. That runoff was the first since Chicago began holding officially nonpartisan elections in 1999. Four years ago, after Mr. Emanuel decided not to run again, Ms. Lightfoot emerged in somewhat surprising fashion from a broad group of candidates that included several more established figures, including William M. Daley, a former White House chief of staff, and Susana Mendoza, the Illinois comptroller. Whoever wins will face a changed City Council.To enact their agenda, every Chicago mayor must navigate the city’s 50-member City Council, a body known for its clubbiness, its members’ frequent criminal indictments and the immense control it can exert over development.As mayor, Ms. Lightfoot, who eliminated some of the sweeping privileges that Council members were historically given to govern their wards, has engaged in highly public disputes with some members even as she worked with them to raise the minimum wage and approve construction of a casino.But the Council is in the midst of a transformation. Several long-serving members have resigned or decided not to seek another term, leaving voters across much of the city to choose new representation. With all 50 seats up for election, and redrawn ward maps being used for the first time, voters will decide whether to empower more moderate or conservative candidates who have focused their campaigns on public safety issues, or elect progressives and Democratic Socialists calling for structural change. The outcomes of those races could determine what policies Ms. Lightfoot or her successor can pursue in the next four years. More