Chicago held its general election for mayor on Tuesday to succeed retiring incumbent Rahm Emanuel, and as all signs predicted, former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot easily defeated Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, a fellow Democrat, by a dominant 74-26 margin. Both Lightfoot and Preckwinkle are black women, so a win for either of them would have made Chicago the largest city in America to ever elect a woman of color as mayor. Additionally, Lightfoot’s victory means that the Windy City is also the biggest city to ever be led by a gay mayor.
But while Lightfoot’s win looked easy, she was anything but the favorite for most of the race. After Emanuel’s surprise retirement, a number of prominent Chicago politicians, including Preckwinkle, entered the Feb. 26 nonpartisan primary. Lightfoot, a first time-candidate for public office, was not among this crowd: She started with considerably less name recognition than most of her opponents, and until February, not a single publicly released poll showed her taking more than 5% of the vote. Preckwinkle, by contrast, almost always led.
However, as the nominal frontrunner, Preckwinkle found herself on the receiving end of widespread attacks and withering scrutiny for months. Rivals focused on her connections to Alderman Ed Burke, who was indicted for corruption in January, as well as a bitterly unpopular 2017 soda tax she passed but then had to repeal after it had been in effect for just two months.
Lightfoot, by contrast, appeared to surge in the final weeks of the primary by positioning herself as a political outsider and arguing that her opponents were "all tied to the same Chicago machine"—the machine personified by Burke (who nevertheless went on to win re-election). Lightfoot also picked up some important endorsements late in the race, including from the Chicago Sun-Times and Rep. Robin Kelly, which may have helped her stand out in an incredibly crowded field.
Lightfoot ended up leading Preckwinkle by a narrow 18-16 spread in the primary, but despite that close showing, she began the general as the favorite. Preckwinkle had made many enemies during her time in local politics while Lightfoot, a comparative fresh face, could appeal to diverse blocs of voters who were each unhappy with the county board president for their own reasons. Lightfoot, by contrast, won over several candidates she’d defeated in the primary, while Preckwinkle’s allies and major donors appeared to have decided that she was no longer a good investment and ceased pouring in funds.
From the moment the second round of voting began, polls showed Lightfoot far ahead and never wavered. Preckwinkle, beset by financial woes, almost completely stopped airing ads during the final weeks of the contest, a very glum sign for the former frontrunner. All of these factors contributed to Lightfoot’s come-from-behind victory to lead the country’s third-largest city.