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What is a runoff election? Chicago mayoral race breakdown

By Maggie Duly
Published  February 24, 2023 10:53am CST
Election
FOX 32 Chicago

New poll shows where Chicago mayoral candidates stand with just days to go

A new voter opinion survey obtained exclusively by FOX 32 Chicago less than a week before the mayoral election shows the top two candidates and where incumbent Lori Lightfoot stands.

CHICAGO - The votes are in, and as expected, there will be a runoff election for Chicago mayor.

To avoid a runoff election, one of the nine candidates needed to receive more than 50% of the vote by the time polls closed Tuesday. Paul Vallas came the closest with 34%. Brandon Johnson trailed him with 20%. 

Now, Vallas and Johnson will compete in a runoff election on April 4.

Incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot pulled 17% of voters and Congressman Chuy Garcia came in 4th with 14%. 

VOTER GUIDE FOR CITY'S HIGHEST OFFICE

Lightfoot won her place in office in a runoff election against Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle on April 2, 2019. 

She began her campaign for mayor in 2018, marking her first run for public office. Two-term incumbent Rahm Emanuel bowed out of the race leaving a crowded field of 14 candidates. Lightfoot beat Preckwinkle with more than 73% of the vote. 

Emanuel was elected mayor in 2011 with 55% of the vote. When running for reelection in 2015, he was challenged by Jesús "Chuy" García, who forced him into the city's first ever mayoral runoff.  Emanuel won reelection with 56% of the vote. 

Chicago mayoral election: Voter turnout is up, but what part of the city are ballots coming from?

More than 100,000 Chicago voters have already cast ballots, prompting election officials to raise their estimate of how many votes will be cast by next Tuesday, when we count them all up.

If Lightfoot doesn't win, she would be the first incumbent Chicago mayor not to be elected to a second term in over three decades when Eugene Sawyer ran for reelection in 1989, but was beat out by Richard M. Daley. 

Incumbent Jane Byrne lost to Harold Washington in 1983. Four years earlier she had defeated incumbent mayor Michael Bilandic. 

WHERE CAN I VOTE? 

Chicago's mayoral election has been non-partisan since the 1990s, prior to that there were Republican and Democratic primaries.

Veteran observers expect a number of aldermanic runoffs, as well. The second round of voting for aldermanic races would take place with the mayoral runoff on April 4.