Who do we think would have won with ranked choice voting?
I’m not a Chicagoan, so am probably missing a lot, but it seems to me that Lightfoot would have gotten a whole lot of second-choice votes.
It would also seem, and maybe I’m speaking from ignorance, that a more extreme candidate, who might have been no better than third choice for the median voter, is likely to be the next mayor of Chicago.
In Philadelphia, we may have a worse system, with eight candidates running for the May 16 Democratic primary that is seemingly tantamount to election. There are several plausible winners, and someone might easily win with less than 30 percent.
I’m cautiously optimistic about Johnson. He strikes me as having good progressive ideas, but in order to actually do what he’s proposing it would piss off a lot of the establishment, so I kind of doubt he’ll get much accomplished.
Vallas? Way too entrenched with FOP to ever get my vote. Yes, we have crime problems, but much like Republicans complain that you can’t solve things just by “throwing money at the problem”, I think just adding more and more police will make the problem worse. It’s not like Chicago cops are known for their honesty and unbiased treatment of citizens. How much of our municipal budget goes to court settlements for the police at this point?
As for Lightfoot, well, she got the short end of the stick. How her time as mayor would have turned out sans Covid and George Floyd and all of that, who knows, it’s academic at this point. From my perspective, Lightfoot voters are much more likely to split for Johnson than Vallas.
Wilson was, and still remains, a joke. The prospect of letting the cops hunt down gangbangers “like rabbits” would resonate with some people, and they’ll break for Vallas in the run off. But relatively speaking that’s a small portion of voters here.
And Chuy? Dude, you’ve already got a job in Congress. Do your job. I think his supporters would split pretty evenly between Johnson and Vallas.
No question in my mind that the CTA is far smellier and less reliable than it was four years ago. Of course a lot of that has to do with the steep decline in ridership during COVID, so the problem may not have been solvable. It’s definitely true, though, that it is a problem and that Lightfoot failed to solve it.
Yeah, this election is going to be like if the Democratic Presidential primary came down to Bloomberg vs. AOC. It will be ugly. And the fact that it’s impossible to imagine that actually happening in a Presidential race suggests that Chicago’s voting system could maybe use some improvement.
I think it’s going to come down to the Lightfoot voters. I think Vallas will get almost all the Wilson votes and Johnson will get almost all the votes from everyone else, which would mean the winner will be the candidate who gets most of the Lightfoot voters. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t know anyone who voted for Lightfoot this time around and I have a hard time imagining who would have done such a thing, so it’s hard for me to predict how that will go.
ETA: If the other candidates split exactly as I predicted, Vallas would lead 44-39, so Johnson would need to pick up about two-thirds of the Lightfoot vote to win.
Well, looking at this map it appears that a lot of Black people stayed loyal to Lightfoot. Basically, she won all the majority-Black areas, Garcia won the Latino areas, Vallas won the moderate white areas and Johnson won the liberal white areas.
That makes me feel more optimistic about Johnson getting the majority of the Lightfoot voters.
I expect crime will get much worse very quickly. There will be a mass exodus of police officers in the next few months with retirements, etc in the hundreds. Also, if Brandon gets his wish with imposing a city income tax I don’t even know how that will impact things. @DSeid, if you live outside the city but work in Chicago you will see that tax deducted from your paycheck as well. At least that was his original plan.
To be clear, both Vallas and Brandon Johnson were both deeply flawed candidates IMHO. Brandon’s defund the police BS and this city income tax are completely unacceptable to me. And Vallas was a bad choice because he is so cozy with the police union and his push for charter schools. I doubt either would end up being a good mayor.
Please explain who people are supposed to call when they are the victim of crime if there aren’t enough police to respond to 911 calls.
The idea crime will go down with less police is silly. I am all for reforming police and retraining as well as holding officers accountable when they abuse their authority. Letting crime run rampant is not the solution.
I was mildly, but not completely, surprised to see Johnson won. I voted for him, but both candidates seemed sensible enough to me, and I wouldn’t have been terribly disappointed if Vallas had won. Why anyone wants that job is beyond me.
“Defund the police” was a stupid catch phrase. The actual concept of taking non-policing off of the police job description and funding social service people to do that instead, made sense.
I don’t understand why any police rank and file wants to do work they are not qualified to do. They are jackhammers. You need jackhammers. But you don’t use a jackhammer on a wart.
The Chicago Police Department is a racist gang of thugs and murderers. Their elected union President is a cop who’s suspended from duty for brutalizing civilians and who openly supports Trump. Anything that encourages turnover in that department can only be a good thing.
I am pretty much over the moon here. We’ve elected a really solid grassroots progressive as leader of the third largest city in the country. This is our chance to show how the Left can govern. Here’s hoping we don’t fuck it up.
The CPD needs major reforms and restructuring I agree. And the head of the FOP is a piece of garbage I agree. I agree a major turnover in the ranks is needed. But that will require restructuring and better training. Cutting funding to 0 is not the answer.
Chicago pays out around $67,000,000 annually (72% of $93mil) in police misconduct settlements and judgments. Maybe they’ll save some money if some of these cops quit their jobs and stay home.
I understand what the word defund means. Cutting off funds means reducing funding to zero. Progressives need to learn what words mean. Anyone who uses that phrase is arguing EXACTLY for allowing crime to run rampant or that don’t understand what they are saying.
To defund is defined as eliminating funds for a group or organization. It’s a stupid stupid idea. People need to understand what the words they say actually mean. I have heard a number of those who want to defund the police use abolish interchangeably.