Chicago mayoral election: Vallas, Johnson and Garcia close fundraising gap with Lightfoot, new reports show

CHICAGO - Mayoral challengers Brandon Johnson, Paul Vallas and Jesus "Chuy" Garcia have closed the fundraising gap with Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who is still spending twice as much money as she’s raising, but none of them has caught millionaire businessman Willie Wilson.

That’s the bottom line of the last quarterly reports to be filed with the state before the Feb. 28 mayoral election.

Wilson still leads the nine-candidate field, nearly every penny of it from his personal fortune. He started the fourth quarter with $4.68 million, raised just $2,960, spent $587,598, most of it on television and radio commercials, and closed the quarter with $4.1 million in the bank.

Johnson raised more money than anybody else in the final quarter of 2022 — $1.83 million — thanks to the generosity of the progressive unions that support him.

A Cook County commissioner and former Chicago Public Schools teacher who still serves as an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson started the quarter with $71,404 in the bank, raised $1.83 million, spent $578,356 to introduce himself to voters and closed with $1.32 million in the bank.

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Nearly all of Johnson’s money came from unions, including $600,000 from the American Federation of Teachers; $350,000 from the CTU; $90,000 from the Illinois Federation of Teachers; $50,000 from the Cook County College Teachers Union; $250,000 from SEIU Local 73 representing school employees; and $300,000 from SEIU Healthcare.

Just this week, the American Federation of Teachers contributed an additional $400,000 to Johnson’s mayoral campaign.

All of those progressive unions formed the cornerstone of Garcia’s 2015 campaign that forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel into Chicago’s first mayoral runoff. This time around, the CTU endorsed one of its own in Johnson, unwilling to wait for Garcia to decide whether to run for mayor.

The last candidate to join the nine-person field, Garcia opened the quarter without a penny in the bank, raised $1.48 million, spent just $151,325 and ended the quarter with $1.33 million in cash on hand. He has since received a $1 million "commitment" from Operating Engineers Local 150 after the powerful trade union bankrolled a poll showing Garcia as the frontrunner. Garcia has yet to air a single campaign commercial on radio or television.

Lightfoot’s fundraising story is a mixed bag, similar to what it was after the last quarterly report.

The good news is she beat Vallas and Garcia in the fundraising sweepstakes and raised $1.49 million, more than all of her competitors except Johnson. The bad news is her $3 million "burn rate." That means she’s still spending money twice as fast as she’s raising it.

Lightfoot has been blanketing the airwaves with a cartoonish commercial that attempts to link Garcia to two indicted political insiders: former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and former cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried. With violent crime foremost on the minds of voters, Lightfoot is also running ads that claim she’s making progress on that front.

"You wouldn’t know it by watching the news or listening to the haters," an announcer says.

Lightfoot started the quarter with $2.94 million in the bank, raised $1.49 million, but spent $3.01 million. She closed with $1.4 million in the bank.

A former Chicago Public Schools CEO, Vallas started the fourth quarter with $852,080, raised $1.13 million and closed with $1.14 million. That’s even after Vallas spent $840,239. In January, he starting ads hammering away on the violent crime he called "out of control."

The Vallas campaign claims he has raked in $850,000 in additional contributions since Jan. 1 and "maintains a cash on hand figure of nearly $1.5 million despite consistently spending more on television ads than any other mayoral challenger in recent weeks."

The rest of the mayoral field barely moved the fundraising meter.

Retiring Ald. Sophia King (4th) joined the race with a reputation for raising big money. But she only managed to raise $231,745 during the final quarter and closed with $229,978 in the bank after airing no commercials.

Retiring Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) opened with $19,347, raised $42,500, spent $25,530 and closed with $36,316.

State Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, started the quarter with $58,903, raised $73,078, spent $122,586 and closed with just $9,395 on hand.

Community activist Ja’Mal Green didn’t raise a penny.

Veteran political operative Victor Reyes. who is supporting but not advising the Garcia campaign, said, "He’s still leading in most polls so he has a little bit of luxury, but not much more. If I was advising his campaign, I’d say he has to be up and on the air within the next two weeks."

Reyes said the most surprising thing about the fourth quarter reports is Lightfoot’s "continued burn rate," leaving the mayor, Garcia, Vallas and Johnson bunched together in the fundraising sweepstakes.

"They’ve spent $3 million and haven’t really moved the needle. And now, they have four or five weeks left with just $1.4 million on hand. That only buys you two weeks of TV. Unless she gets a big influx of money, she won’t be able to stay up on TV for the duration," Reyes said.

"Maybe they needed to spend that money to redefine her. But from the polling I’ve seen so far, it hasn’t worked."

Lightfoot campaign spokesperson Hannah Goss said the mayor’s spending clip can be easily explained by the commercials she’s been airing since November. Lightfoot will have the money she needs to remain on the air through Feb. 28, she said.

"For months, we’ve been running an effective and aggressive TV communications campaign to talk to voters. Our opponents aren’t even up — several of them. So we’ve been defining them before they can define themselves. That’s a winning strategy," Goss said.