Photo: Alamy
Democrat Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, whose soft-on-crime policies have plagued the third largest city in the nation with record crime rates, has lost her bid for reelection.
With 84 percent of the votes tallied, Lightfoot had barely garnered 16 percent, trailing two of her challengers.
Lightfoot conceded after placing third against eight other candidates on Tuesday, telling her supporters that she would now be “rooting and praying for the next mayor of Chicago.”
“We fought the right fights and we put this city on a better path,” said Lightfoot.
Former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, and county board commissioner Brandon Johnson, will advance to a runoff on April 4 because none of the nine candidates gathered a majority of the overall votes cast.
Chicago’s relaxed law and order policies, combined with the city’s record crime rates, played a crucial role in the election. During Lightfoot’s tenure, homicides rates in the city rose to their highest levels in 2021, despite the mayor’s continuous comments that the city was “safe.”
Vallas has made reducing crime a theme of his campaign, telling supporters during his victory speech that he planned to make Chicago “the safest city in America.” Meanwhile, Johnson has advocated for reinvesting funds from police forces to mental health care, affordable housing, and education.
Lightfoot is the first mayor of Chicago to lose reelection since former Mayor Jane Byrne in 1983.
