Paul Vallas, Brandon Johnson projected to face off in Chicago mayoral runoff

Former CEO of Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson are projected to have secured enough votes to advance to the second round of voting in Chicago’s mayoral election.

A large amount of mail-in ballots — over 100,000 — are not fully counted yet. However, Johnson has been consistently ahead of current Mayor Lori Lightfoot by at least 16,000 votes, with 89% of precincts reporting as of 8:30 p.m. CST. Lightfoot conceded to Vallas and Johnson at 8:45 p.m., and the Associated Press called the race for Vallas and Johnson at 8:49 p.m.

Vallas has been building momentum and leading in polls throughout January and February, despite a series of setbacks involving his son shooting a Black man in Texas, concerns over his permanent address being outside the Chicago city limits and criticisms over his official Twitter account liking tweets using racist and offensive language. The 69-year-old previously ran for mayor in 2019, where he finished ninth among the 14 candidates with 5.43% of the vote.

In 1995, Vallas was appointed by then Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley to serve as the first CEO of Chicago Public Schools, a newly created position. Prior to this appointment, Vallas was Daley’s budget director for several years. He also leans heavily on his background in education, namely school privatization; he has called school choice “the civil rights issue for this generation.”

Johnson, meanwhile, has seen a late surge of progressive votes, supposedly taking them away from Lightfoot and U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García. He has garnered as many endorsements as Lightfoot has, and his endorsement of the “Treatment Not Trauma” plan has helped to frame the conversation on public safety. However, he has been criticized for once calling defunding the police an actual “political goal”; he recently dodged his support of the issue when asked about it by the Chicago Tribune.

Lightfoot has been facing an uphill battle for the entirety of the election, with all her opponents heavily criticizing her four years as mayor mostly for her track record with crime and mounting police vacancies. García has also been blasted by opponents for his association with disgraced former Illinois Speaker of the House Mike Madigan and indicted crypto scammer Sam-Bankman Fried.

Disclaimer: Brandon Johnson previously hosted a weekend program, “Sunday Mornings with Brandon Johnson,” on WCPT 820AM prior to his mayoral campaign. And Edwin Eisendrath, host of “The Big Picture with Edwin Eisendrath” on WCPT, endorsed U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García in the race. None of these influenced and will not influence Heartland Signal’s editorial process in covering the 2023 Chicago mayoral election.