Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Election night wrap-up
We begin today with veteran Chicago Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman describing Chicago Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson’s “flawless execution” of a political strategy that enabled Johnson to win the mayoral race.
He won 29 of 50 wards, including a clean sweep of majority African-American wards. He won six Hispanic majority wards to Vallas’ nine. The Latino wards Johnson carried included the 22nd Ward that is home to former mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, the Southwest Side congressman who endorsed Johnson.
And the impact of [Paul] Vallas’ showing in the nine Latino wards he won was greatly diminished by the anemic Hispanic turnout. That was driven, in part, by so few Latino wards — only the 10th, the 30th, and the 36th — also holding City Council runoffs, which help bring out more voters. In the Southwest Side’s 14th Ward, where [the] Council race was already decided, only 4,283 total votes were cast.
While Vallas was falling short of the big numbers he needed in Hispanic wards, Johnson was padding his vote totals along the lakefront and racking up big victories in predominantly Black wards after winning none of the majority African American wards in Round One of the mayoral sweepstakes.
The bottom line? Vallas was hurt more by his previous comments that he was “more of a Republican than a Democrat” than Johnson was by his “defund the police” comments. (Where did Paul Vallas think he was running for mayor? New York City?)
I understand that in the rumble of a political campaign, regrettable things get said. But—and I‘ve been saying this since at least 2016—any candidate should be very careful of what they say and how they say it. Because you never know when you might have to come back around to voters who were offended and ask them for their vote again.