This spring, two of the biggest Chicago heavyweights will square off in a winner-take-all slugfest to decide who will wear the title of champion.
Well, sort of.
On Apr. 7, Chicagoans will head to the polls for the last leg of the 2015 mayoral election, a run-off pitting New Trier graduate and incumbent mayor, Rahm Emanuel, against Cook Country commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
It marks the end of a marathon campaign for all of the candidates. Even by the standards of Chicago politics, this election has been anything but simple.
When the polls opened on Feb. 24, Chicagoans chose from a surprisingly diverse selection of five candidates: mayor Rahm Emanuel, former 2nd ward Alderman Bob Fioretti, community activist William “Dock” Walls, self-made entrepreneur Willie Wilson, and Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
Chicago Public School (CPS) board president Karen Wilson was also selected but she withdrew due to serious health problems.
After the dust settled, it became clear that the winner would have to be decided at a later date. According to WTTW, Emanuel took 45.63% (218,217 votes) while Garcia took 33.53% (160,414 votes).
Wilson took 10.66% (50,960 votes), Fioretti took 7.39% (35,363), and Walls took 2.77% (13,250 votes).
Since no candidate won more than 50% of the votes, Emanuel and Garcia, the top two candidates, were entered into a runoff scheduled for April 7th.
According to DNAInfo, Emanuel’s main votes came from the 42nd, 43rd, and 44th wards (downtown area), while the bulk of Garcia’s votes came from south, west, and central areas, including the 12th, 22nd, 35th and 10th wards.
Wilson’s votes came almost exclusively from the south and west side, where he is a role model for Chicagoans trying to escape poverty.
Fioretti was supported strongly in the 11th, 37th, and 46th wards, while community activist “Dock” Walls was strongest on the far south side.
The road to the mayor’s office will not be easy for either candidate. Emanuel, while still the favorite, has faced criticism over the closing of many CPS schools and favoring the downtown area by not giving enough attention or funds to the outlying areas of Chicago (particularly the impoverished south and west side).
However, on Wednesday, Garcia’s campaign got a huge boost in the form of an endorsement from his former opponent, Willie Wilson.
According to WTTW, Wilson, a self-made millionaire and son of a Louisiana sharecropper, is viewed as a crucial endorsement, key to securing the African American vote.
Many experts cite the African American vote as essential to the success of either candidate. Both Emanuel and Garcia have been making stops trying to shore up as much support as they can in the past weeks, as neither are in particularly strong standing with the African American community.
According to WTTW, “Emanuel’s support in the black community has visibly waned, as he received 42 percent of the votes from predominantly black wards, down from the 59 percent he received in 2011.
GarcÃa received only 26 percent of votes from these wards. This low showing could have been affected by [Willie] Wilson’s appearance on the ballot, but in GarcÃa’s case, it may also point to a deeper rift within minority communities.”
However, Wilson’s endorsement may not be enough to save Chuy’s campaign. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, “Ogden & Fry released the results of its Saturday survey of 1,020 likely voters. Mayor Rahm Emanuel had 43.5 percent support of the respondents in the one-question poll, while challenger Garcia had 38 percent. Eighteen percent of respondents were undecided. Ogden & Fry repeated its contention that Hispanic voters are consistently underrepresented in the data, but it predicted black voters will determine the April 7 election.”