Lori Lightfoot’s reign as Chicago mayor slammed as loses reelection bid

Conservatives are rejoicing that Chicago‘s notorious soft on crime mayor spectacularly lost her reelection bid in Windy City on Tuesday night. 

Mayor Lori Lightfoot scraped just 17 percent of the vote in the race for City Hall, forcing a run off between Paul Vallas, a former schools CEO and Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner on April 4.  

This made Lightfoot the first elected Chicago mayor to lose a reelection bid since 1983, when Jane Byrne, the city’s first female mayor, lost her Democratic primary.

Lightfoot, the first black woman and first openly gay person to lead the city, won her first term in 2019 after promising to end decades of corruption and backroom dealing at City Hall. 

But opponents blamed Lightfoot for an increase in crime that occurred in cities across the U.S. during the pandemic and criticized her as being a divisive, overly contentious leader.

Among those leading the chorus of celebration was controversial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene who tweeted: ‘Lori Lightfoot. Crime doesn’t pay.’ 

Many joined Greene on Twitter, saying that with Lightfoot gone, they hope peace can finally be restored in the Windy City.

Former Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones tweeted: ‘Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot, just got the FOOT! Other Democrat mayors with run-away crime in your cities, take note. Even liberals are tired of being unsafe.’

Jonathan Turley, a criminal defense attorney and FOX News contributor added: ‘There is hope for my home city yet. Lori Lightfoot is out.

‘The greatest potential improvement for the city since 1900 when the direction of the Chicago river was reversed.’

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich chimed in saying: ‘Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago coming in third in her bid for a second term is an encouraging sign that things can get bad enough for citizens to defeat the machines. Maybe Baltimore City is next.’

‘The bad news for Lori Lightfoot is she’s no longer Mayor of Chicago. The good news is she can go spend time someplace safer, like Ukraine,’ said Fox News personality Jimmy Failla. 

While movie star and comedian Rob Schneider contributed: ‘I will remember Lori Lightfoot as a tyrant yelling and threatening her constituents on the street to go back indoors…’

‘She is proof that Voting for just anybody with a “D” next to it, has consequences… Glad even liberal Chicago said ENUF!’ the Deuce Bigelow star added. 

On Facebook, one Chicago resident wrote: ‘Glad the garbage is out, Chicago needs a change, I just hope for a city where we can feel safe.’

Another wrote: ‘The good people of Chicago, and these other fine American cities deserve better. She’s to soft on crime, and drove businesses and residents out. She didn’t get along with police, teachers unions, and citizens, and businesses.’

While another struck a different chord highlighting systematic problems in Chicago. 

‘A new mayor won’t stop the crime unless some real systemic change is implemented to the underserved neighborhoods. Stop and frisk and the national guard won’t fix it! There is a new breed of criminal out here now!’ a local resident wrote. 

On the official Chicago Reddit page in a thread titled: ‘Was Lori Lightfoot a bad mayor?’ Many pointed to Lightfoot’s handling of the Covid-19 lockdown, such as closing certain parks but not closing others. 

‘Some of her lockdown decisions absolutely defied explanation. Parks and beaches closed…but Montrose Dog Beach open,’ wrote one user. 

Others questioned her handling of the anti-police protests caused by the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2021, including believing a conspiracy theory that a bus loaded with ANTIFA protesters was en route from Indiana. 

‘Was the ANTIFA bus conspiracy created by the looters so they could loot? Or was it that people knew all the police were somewhere else (they did not know about ANTIFA) so they looted?’ a user pondered. 

Speaking on Fox & Friends hours after Lightfoot’s defeat was confirmed, resident Diana Dejacimo said that she didn’t know anyone who voted for the incumbent. 

Dejacimo explained that in December, she was held at gunpoint amid the violence in the city. 

‘I believe that people have just had enough. My message has been go out and change. Regime change is the only way we’re going to fix this, and I think this was a loud and clear message that this woke agenda is not working for Chicago,’ she told the network. 

Rita DiPietro, who lives downtown, said she supported Lightfoot in 2019. But she voted for Vallas on Tuesday, saying she was impressed by his detailed strategy to address public safety.

‘The candidates all talk about what they’d like to do,’ she told the Associated Press. ‘This guy actually has a plan. He knows how he’s going to do it.’

Lindsey Hegarty, a 30-year-old paralegal who lives on Chicago’s North Side, said she backed Johnson because ‘he seemed like the most progressive candidate on issues like policing, mental health’ and public transit.

Speaking to supporters Tuesday night, Lightfoot called being Chicago’s mayor ‘the honor of a lifetime.’

‘Regardless of tonight’s outcome, we fought the right fights and we put this city on a better path,’ Lightfoot said. She told her fellow mayors around the country not to fear being bold.

Lightfoot’s comments over her loss harkens back to when she controversially stated that a bulk of her criticism stems from the fact that she is a black woman.

In 2021, Phil Ponce, of WTTW, said: ‘In recent months, there have been questions raised about your temperament and your reaction to criticism – a (Chicago) Tribune editorial used the term irascible – how much of this do you think might have to do with the fact that you’re a woman and specifically a black woman?’

In response, Lightfoot said, ’99 percent of it.’

Asked to elaborate, Lightfoot said, ‘Look at my predecessors. Did people say that Rich Daly held tea sessions with people that he didn’t disagree on? Ron Emmanuel was a polite guy who was a uniter?

‘No. Woman and people of color are always held to a different standard. I understand that. I’ve known that my whole life.’

As crime continued to soar through the last years of her term, Lightfoot was heavily criticized for promoting other matters than public safety, including a citywide karaoke contest and dancing in the street during a festival.

Lightfoot first faced intense backlash after she joined calls from Democratic mayors in 2021 to cut the budget of police departments, a movement that also resulted in officers quitting the force and violent crime to spike.

The embattled mayor then committed to a U-turn, opting instead to ‘refund the police’ and hire more officers, but the move has done little to curb crime.

According to the Chicago Police Department’s latest report, rapes have shot up by 16 percent so far this year compared to the same time in 2022.

Robberies are also up 13 percent, with aggravated battery and burglaries both up 11 percent.

Theft in the windy city is up 31 percent, and vehicle thefts, specifically, have soared up 143 percent.

Homicides and shooting incidents were the only category to see decreases, falling by 18 percent and 8 percent, respectively.

While overall violent crime is up 52 percent from the same time last year, it’s up 102 percent when compared to 2021.

At his victory party, Vallas noted that Lightfoot had called to congratulate him and asked the crowd to give her a round of applause. 

In a nod to his campaign promise to combat crime, he said that, if elected, he would work to address public safety issues. 

‘We will have a safe Chicago. We will make Chicago the safest city in America,’ Vallas said. 

Johnson on Tuesday night noted the improbability that he would make the runoff, considering his low name recognition at the start of the race.

‘A few months ago they said they didn’t know who I was. Well, if you didn’t know, now you know,’ Johnson said. 

He thanked the unions that supported him and gave a special shout-out to his wife, telling the crowd, ‘Chicago, a Black woman will still be in charge.’

Lightfoot’s loss is unusual for mayors in large cities, who have tended to win reelection with relative ease. But it’s also a sign of the turmoil in U.S. cities following the COVID-19 pandemic, with its economic fallout and spikes in violent crime in many places.

Public safety has been an issue in other recent elections, including the recall of a San Francisco district attorney who was criticized for progressive policies. 

The pandemic also may shape elections for mayor in other cities this year, such as Philadelphia and Houston, where incumbents cannot run again due to term limits.

There are clear contrasts between Vallas and Johnson.

Vallas served as an adviser to the Fraternal Order of Police during its negotiations with Lightfoot’s administration. 

He has called for adding hundreds of police officers to patrol the city, saying crime is out of control and morale among officers sunk to a new low during Lightfoot’s tenure.

Vallas’ opponents have criticized him as too conservative to lead the Democratic stronghold. 

Lightfoot blasted him for welcoming support from the police union’s controversial leader, who defended the Jan. 6 insurrectionists at the Capitol and equated Lightfoot’s vaccine mandate for city workers to the Holocaust. 

Johnson received about $1 million from the Chicago Teachers Union for his campaign and had support from several other progressive organizations, including United Working Families. 

The former teacher and union organizer has argued that the answer to addressing crime is not more money for police but more investment in mental health care, education, jobs and affordable housing, and he was accused by rivals such as Lightfoot of wanting to defund the police. 

Johnson has avoided the word ‘defund’ during the race, and his campaign says he does not want to cut the number of police officers. 

But in a 2020 radio interview, Johnson said defunding is not just a slogan but ‘an actual real political goal,’ and he sponsored a nonbinding resolution on the county board to redirect money from policing and jails to social services. 

Lightfoot accused Vallas of using ‘the ultimate dog whistle’ by saying his campaign is about ‘taking back our city,’ and of cozying up to the president of the Fraternal Order of Police, whom she calls a racist. 

A recent Chicago Tribune story also found Vallas’ Twitter account had liked racist tweets and tweets that mocked Lightfoot’s appearance and referred to her as masculine.

Vallas denied his comments were related to race and says his police union endorsement is from rank-and-file officers. 

He also said he wasn’t responsible for the liked tweets, which he called ‘abhorrent,’ and suggested someone had improperly accessed his account.

Lightfoot touted her record of investing in neighborhoods and supporting workers, such as by increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour. 

She also noted that the city had navigated unprecedented challenges such as the pandemic and its economic and public safety fallout to protests over policing.

Asked if she was treated unfairly because of her race and gender, Lightfoot said: ‘I’m a black woman in America. Of course.’

Vallas, who has led school systems in Chicago, New Orleans and Philadelphia, lost a 2019 bid for mayor. This time, he was laser-focused on public safety, saying police officers who left the force under Lightfoot’s administration will return if he’s elected.

The other candidates were businessman Willie Wilson, Chicago City Council members Sophia King and Roderick Sawyer, activist Ja’Mal Green and state Rep. Kambium ‘Kam’ Buckner.