Lori Lightfoot, first openly gay mayor of Chicago, loses reelection
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who made headlines a couple of years ago when she became the first black woman and first openly gay person to lead the city, has lost reelection.
Lightfoot came in third place on Tuesday, finishing behind long-serving public school official Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson.
Vallas, who ran on a staunchly pro-police platform, and Johnson, who had strong backing from progressives and labor unions, will square off in a runoff mayoral election on April 4.
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"Serving as your mayor has been the honor of a lifetime, and I am so grateful to all of you who have stood beside me these last four years," said Lightfoot in a statement Tuesday evening.
"We've made significant progress building a safer, more equitable city. I thank each and every one of you for believing in me."
In 2019, Lightfoot was elected when she defeated Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in a runoff election in which she got 73% of the vote and won all 50 wards.
"We are going to transform our city," Lightfoot said in a speech at the time, as reported by USA Today. "No one person, no one leader—even if it's a woman—can change the city alone. We must do it together."
During her term in office, Lightfoot found herself in political fights with the powerfully influential Chicago Teachers' Union over issues like teacher pay.
Chicago also saw a significant uptick in crime. In 2021, Cook County had the most murders since 1994, when the office reported 1,141 homicides.
A July 2021 report from The Chicago Tribune found that there had been 2,021 shooting victims in the city from Jan. 1 of that year to July 7. In November 2021, the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office issued a report which found that the number of homicides in the county had passed 1,000 by the end of Thanksgiving.
Of the 1,009 confirmed homicides during that time, 777 of them happened in Chicago.
Murders decreased slightly in 2022 but still ranked among the highest since the late 1990s. Chicago Police Department data reveals 695 homicides in Chicago from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2022, according to WTTW.
Lightfoot also reportedly had a tenuous relationship with the city council, according to The Wall Street Journal, with many local politicians switching their support to other candidates.
"I think there is a lot of disappointment in the communities that I represent, about having high hopes for her and being very disappointed in her performance," Alderman Tom Tunney was quoted as saying.
