SHE’S OUT! Voters kick Lori Lightfoot to the curb

OPINION:  This article contains commentary which may reflect the author’s opinion

Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot has finally been displaced from her position with Illinois state government after voters there had gotten an overload of terrible representation from the longtime civil servant. Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson will meet in a runoff to be the next mayor of Chicago after voters on Tuesday denied incumbent Lori Lightfoot a second term.

Local Chicago news reported the details:

Lightfoot, the first black woman and the first openly gay person ever to serve as mayor of Chicago, on Tuesday became a one-term mayor.

With nearly 99% of the precincts reporting, the mayor who guided Chicago through the pandemic finished third in Tuesday’s election with 17.06% of the vote behind former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas, who won 33.77 %, and Cook County Commissioner and Chicago Teachers Union organizer Brandon Johnson, who wound up with 20.29%.

Vallas, 69, and Johnson, 46, will face off five weeks from now in the April 4 runoff to decide who will become the 57th mayor of Chicago.

“Obviously, we didn’t win the election. But I stand here with my head held high and my heart full of thanks,” Lightfoot told supporters shortly before 9 p.m.

“You will not be defined by how you fall. You will be defined by how hard you work and how much you do for other people,” she said.

Lightfoot is famous for allowing crime to run rampant, for corruption over tolls, for a disastrous administration, and most notably for a clown show- sideshows dubbed ‘The Consensus Cowboy” and the “Rona Destroyer”:

And:

Chicago’s voters were more concerned about the level of crime than the entertainment from their civil servants.

According to her bio, Lori Elaine Lightfoot is an American politician and attorney serving as the 56th mayor of Chicago since 2019.

Before becoming mayor, Lightfoot worked in private legal practice as a partner at Mayer Brown and held various government positions in Chicago.

Most notably, she served as president of the Chicago Police Board and chair of the Chicago Police Accountability Task Force.

Lightfoot ran for mayor of Chicago in the 2019 Chicago mayoral election, advancing to a runoff election against Toni Preckwinkle, which Lightfoot won on April 2, 2019. However, she lost reelection in the first round of the 2023 Chicago mayoral election.

And not only did the embattled Democrat lose, but she also lost big and came in third place, which posters on social media took note of:

BizPacReview reported more details on the humiliating loss for Lightfoot:

The Associated Press reported that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her reelection bid Tuesday, sending leading challenger Paul Vallas and second-place candidate Brandon Johnson to an April 4 runoff contest.

Fellow candidates criticized Lightfoot in light of Chicago’s rampant crime problem, with polled likely voters citing crime and public safety as the mayoral election’s foremost issue after the city recorded more major crime complaints in 2022 than during 2019, the year she took office, according to Chicago Police Department (CPD) data.

Vallas, who previously served as CEO of Chicago Public schools and later the Philadelphia School District, won the Chicago Fraternal of Police’s endorsement, pledging to fire CPD Superintendent David Brown and grow the department’s sworn officer staff back to the level it reached when Vallas was Chicago’s city budget director in the mid-1990s.

Lightfoot told supporters Tuesday night that she had called to congratulate Vallas and Johnson, the AP reported.

The Chicago Teachers Union endorsed Johnson after expressing support for police defunding, and Lightfoot had claimed Saturday that he “wants to cut your police,” according to Politico.

BizPacReview went on:

Lightfoot declared before Election Day Tuesday that only she could beat Vallas. So he ran against her for mayor in 2019. Still, he failed to reach that year’s runoff election, with Lightfoot eventually defeating Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle by more than 45% in the contest.

Lightfoot accused Vallas of a “pathetic attempt to hide his MAGA Republican ways” in early February after the Chicago Tribune reported his Twitter account had liked a series of tweets that used racist language, backed police tactics like “stop and frisk” and personally insulted Lightfoot. Vallas claimed to have been “shocked” upon learning of the account’s activity “because this kind of abhorrent and vile rhetoric does not represent me or my views” and said he did not personally manage the account, according to the outlet.

Vallas said in a 2009 interview that he was “more of a Republican than a Democrat now,” which Lightfoot pointed out, but recently called himself a “lifelong Democrat,” Politico reported.

CNN reported that Vallas, a longtime public schools chief, ran on a tough-on-crime message. Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner backed by progressives and the Chicago Teachers Union, will advance to the April runoff, CNN projects.

“Tuesday’s municipal election marked the first time in more than 30 years that Chicago has ditched its mayor. Lightfoot could not overcome years of fights with the police and teachers’ unions, a spike in violent crime during her administration, and Chicago’s slow recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic,” the outlet reported, adding:

“Lightfoot conceded Tuesday evening, telling supporters that she is now “rooting and praying for the next mayor of Chicago.”

Fox News reported that Lightfoot was roasted in Chicago media for landslide defeat: ‘Ultimate political humiliation.’

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