Paul Vallas has had a bad week

After surging in the polls going into February, Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas has seen his momentum stalled this week by a series of campaign setbacks.

Most recently, an investigation published Thursday night by WTTW News revealed that Vallas’ permanent residence may be in Palos Heights, IL, which is outside the city limits. One of the requirements to run for mayor of Chicago is to be a registered voter and resident of the city of Chicago. Although Vallas has been registered to vote at an apartment in the Bridgeport neighborhood for less than a year, he listed a home in Palos Heights as his permanent residence when he made a $250 campaign contribution to now-Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias’ campaign in September. The Vallas campaign said this was a mistake and it would be corrected, all while calling the WTTW story “malicious” and “untrue” in a press release.

Former Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) endorsed Vallas’ opponent Jesús “Chuy” García for mayor on Thursday. Despite the fact that Vallas was Quinn’s running mate in the 2014 Illinois gubernatorial election, Quinn insisted that García is the better choice as Chicago’s mayor, even saying he voted for García in the 2015 mayoral election. Quinn himself flirted with a 2023 mayoral run but opted out in November.

Former Gov. Pat Quinn endorses Jesùs “Chuy” García for mayor of Chicago, as state Rep. Theresa Mah looks on. García will ensure Chicagoans get real property tax relief, Quinn says. pic.twitter.com/xWPvOpEfm5

— Heather Cherone (@HeatherCherone) February 9, 2023

On Wednesday, a report published by The Triibe revealed that Vallas’ son Gus, a police officer serving in San Antonio, Texas, was one of three officers involved in the shooting of 28-year-old Kevin Johnson in March 2022. Officers allegedly clipped Johnson, a Black man who the police had been searching for because of felony possession of a firearm and parole violation, with their car while he was riding his bike and proceeded to flee.

In body cam footage released by the San Antonio Police Department, one of the officers can be heard shouting “Get down, boy!” at the fleeing Johnson. When Johnson crossed an embankment and fell to the ground, one of the officers calls out that he is holding a firearm, and the three officers proceed to shoot Johnson nine times until he was motionless. SAPD said they retrieved a handgun near Johnson’s body after the shooting.

Paul Vallas’ campaign addressed the incident in a statement.

“The matter was the subject of a complete investigation,” the statement read. “Gus Vallas was found not to have engaged in any violation of policy and was returned to full duty.”

Vacancies in the Chicago Police Department, relationships between the CPD and the community and crime in general continue to be core issues in the Chicago mayoral race. In June of last year, the CPD amended its policy on the ability for officers to chase individuals on foot after the killings of Adam Toledo and Anthony Alvarez sparked outrage. The updated rule only allows police officers to chase people on foot if they suspect the person is committing or about to commit a felony. Vallas, who accepted an endorsement by the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police last month, was a vocal critic of this change on his Twitter account.

.@ChiefDavidBrown unveils new policy: @Chicago_Police no longer allowed to chase people on foot “b/c they run away” This will embolden criminals & make the city even more dangerous. We need MORE proactive policing, not less! #ChiMayor23 https://t.co/6uWdKk07zn

— Paul Vallas (@PaulVallas) June 21, 2022

“This will embolden criminals & make the city even more dangerous,” Vallas wrote last June. “We need MORE proactive policing, not less!”

Vallas has also come under fire by his opponents García and Mayor Lori Lightfoot for falsely claiming that he is a lifelong Democrat. In a 2009 interview with Jeff Berkowitz, Vallas is shown saying, “I am more of a Republican than a Democrat now.” During the same interview, Vallas also said that he does not support abortion rights for religious reasons and that he would support the now-disgraced Rudy Giuliani first, now-Sen. Mitt Romney (R) second and then-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) third over then-President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential race.

Vallas downplayed the interview when asked about it by ABC 7, saying it is an old interview where he was entertaining hypotheticals that he never acted on.

And a Crain’s Chicago Business dive into campaign expenditures also revealed that one of Vallas’s senior strategists, Joe Trippi, owns a political expenditure committee that has spent $165,000 on TV ads promoting Vallas’ mayoral bid. In addition to this being a potential violation of Illinois campaign finance laws, there has been no disclosure as to where the $165,000 came from despite there being a 48-hour window to do so.

The Vallas campaign did not immediately comment on these setbacks.

After appearing to be in the lead the past two weeks, recent polling by the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ shows a three-way standoff between Vallas, García and Lightfoot with two-and a half weeks until election day on the 28th.

Disclaimer: Edwin Eisendrath, host of “The Big Picture with Edwin Eisendrath” on WCPT 820AM, publicly endorsed U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García in the Chicago mayoral race. This has not influenced and will not influence Heartland Signal’s editorial process in covering the 2023 Chicago mayoral election.