New Year, New Election
In less than two months, our city’s citizens will cast their ballots in the mayoral election, held every four years on the last Tuesday of February. The latest surveys have current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel nearing but not yet reaching the required 50 percent of those votes to avoid a runoff election in April. The most recent poll projects Emanuel to receive 44 percent of the vote, Jesus Garcia to receive 16 percent and Robert Fioretti to receive 15 percent. Here’s the North by Northwestern guide to the top three candidates for the election on Feb. 24.
Rahm Emanuel
Currently polling in first place to run the Second City, Emanuel will be the incumbent in February’s race. In the past, he has been a three-term member of the Clinton administration, a member of the House of Representatives and Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff. Emanuel’s job approval rating has fallen fast over his tenure as mayor. In mid-2011, near the beginning of his term, internal polling numbers indicated that Emanuel held an impressive 79 percent job approval rating, a figure that plummeted to 35 percent in August 2014. Reasons for the diminishing support include his closing of 54 of Chicago’s public schools, predominantly in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods, concerns about spikes in crime that earned him the nickname “murder mayor” and a likability problem spawning from his allegedly close ties with corporations and his status as a Washington insider. In spite of these criticisms, however, Emanuel is still the candidate with the highest financial backing and name recognition, and he is still projected to win reelection – though it might be a close one. He supports a $13 minimum wage.
Jesus “Chuy” Garcia
Though polls showed that Teachers Union leader Karen Lewis would have beaten Emanuel in a head-to-head race, she announced in October that she would not be running, due to her battle with brain cancer. However, she has wholeheartedly endorsed Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, a Cook County commissioner. Garcia announced his candidacy in early November, and is seen by many to be the best possible challenger to Emanuel. The incumbent’s popularity numbers are even lower among minorities, with one poll projecting him to receive only 8 percent of the African-American vote and 2 percent of the Hispanic vote. His supporters believe Garcia, an immigrant from northern Mexico and the first Latino elected to the Illinois Senate, could round up support from minority groups that have grown to dislike the mayor they overwhelmingly supported just a few years ago. Garcia’s agenda would include replacing the current police superintendent to focus more on crime in poorer city neighborhoods, raising the minimum wage to $15 and increasing transparency within the Chicago Board of Education.
Robert Fioretti
The other prominent candidate is Robert Fioretti, an alderman in Chicago’s City Council and a civil rights attorney, part of the Cook County Democratic party. As alderman, he has focused on employment, crime and education, the three main areas he said he would continue to work on if elected mayor. He supports raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour and passing an elected school board, and he has proposed legislation to City Council to add 500 more police officers to the streets. Fioretti differs from Emanuel in that he supports a slightly higher minimum wage, and his campaign strategist Michael Kolenc said he believes this is an important difference. “By the time the $13-per-hour wage is fully instituted, it’ll only be pennies above the poverty line,” Kolenc said. “So $2 extra an hour makes a difference.” Though the most recent poll placed him at only 15 percent, internal polling numbers given to North by Northwestern from the Fioretti campaign placed him only 4 percent behind Emanuel in a hypothetical two-way race.