Chicago voters on Tuesday will choose between two Democratic mayoral candidates who offer starkly different strategies to lead the third-largest US city as it faces rising crime, struggling schools and a fragile financial outlook.
(Bloomberg) — Chicago voters on Tuesday will choose between two Democratic mayoral candidates who offer starkly different strategies to lead the third-largest US city as it faces rising crime, struggling schools and a fragile financial outlook.
Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas, former head of Chicago Public Schools, are facing off in a contentious runoff election. Johnson, 47, is a progressive backed by the Chicago Teachers Union who wants to raise taxes on businesses and the rich. Vallas, 69, won the support of the police union while campaigning on the need to reduce crime and attract businesses. The two received the most votes in the Feb. 28 general election that ousted incumbent Lori Lightfoot.
“You couldn’t get a more distinctive choice,” David Axelrod, a top political strategist for former President Barack Obama, said in an interview. “Distinctly different philosophies. It’s a stark choice.”
Because of outstanding mail-in ballots that the city’s board of elections has until April 18 to count, the race may not be called Tuesday. If the margin separating the candidates is 2 to 4 percentage points, the campaigns will likely be more comfortable conceding after the majority of those mail-in ballots come back “within that first week or even the next two weeks,” Max Bever, a spokesperson for the board, told reporters.
The election comes as Chicago is at a crossroads. It’s still recovering from the pandemic that exacerbated long-standing problems of crime and inequality. High-profile corporate departures, including billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel and plane maker Boeing Co. have hurt its reputation. And just this week as fears of a recession loom, McDonald’s Corp., based in the West Loop neighborhood, is temporarily closing its US offices as it notifies hundreds of corporate employees that they’re losing their jobs in a broader restructuring plan.
Crime Concerns
Griffin cited violence as a reason for moving his Citadel hedge fund to Florida last year. Lightfoot’s failure to effectively tackle crime fueled her loss, making her the city’s first mayor to lose a reelection bid since 1983. In addition to public safety concerns, her successor will also have to deal with a potential economic slowdown.
Chicago is also likely to be more impacted because it’s yet to fully recover from the pandemic. A University of California study that analyzed mobile phone data as of November across 62 cities in North America put Chicago’s recovery behind places including New York City; Washington, DC; Los Angeles; Houston and Boston.
“The Chicago economy, broadly, hasn’t fully recovered anyway, and particularly from a labor market perspective,” said Michael Gregory, deputy chief economist and head of US economics at BMO. “It’s already starting from a little bit weaker than other areas. So it’s gonna feel like they’re shouldering a little bit more of the burden.”
Fiscal Woes
Vallas has blasted the city’s downtown vacancies as well as falling school enrollments, and warned about the city’s looming fiscal cliff. He has said he wants to “hold the line” on taxes, fines and fees, and cut bureaucracy in a bid to sell Chicago as a business-friendly destination.
Meanwhile, Johnson has proposed a $4 per employee tax on large companies that have at least half of their operation in Chicago. He is also proposing a $1 or $2 tax per securities-trading contract, a plan that would likely need state approval and is fiercely opposed by the city’s exchange giants CME Group Inc. and Cboe Global Markets Inc. He also wants to raise taxes on hotels, implement a levy on airlines that pollute the city’s air and hike fees on the sale of high-end properties.
The Windy City’s revenue next year is expected to fall from 2023 and federal funds that helped boost its coffers are ending just as odds of a US recession are increasing, according to the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. Plus, the city still faces large annual pension contributions.
“Let’s start with the fiscal cliff, because pretty clearly there will be one facing the next mayor of the city of Chicago,” said Ralph Martire, executive director of the center. “In fact it’s not gonna be a minor cliff.”
(Adds comment from elections board on timing of results in fourth paragraph.)
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