The incumbent is out of the race

Eric Adams, the Los Angeles Mayor, spoke about crime and community violence in New York City from 2021 to 2021, and why he’s calling for stronger, safer, safer Chicago

In New York State last year, Republican candidates were focused on crime more than usual, and did a better job. Democratic candidates often tried to change the subject. After the election, Adams said that the people who said “Don’t talk about crime,” was an insult to Black and brown communities. Nancy Pelosi told The Times’s Maureen Dowd that Democrats might have maintained control of the House of Representatives if the party’s candidates in New York had taken crime more seriously.

In New York City, Eric Adams won the mayor’s race in 2021 by focusing his campaign on crime. In the Democratic primary, he lost only one of the city’s five boroughs: Manhattan, the wealthiest.

Portland, the largest city in the state of Oregon, has become a symbol for post-pandemic disorder and Republicans did well there last year. Between 2019 and 2022, murders nearly tripled, vandalism incidents nearly doubled and car thefts rose 69 percent.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has developed a progressive message on crime. A former community organizer who spent 12 years in the House of Representatives, Bass defeated a more conservative candidate not by downplaying crime concerns but by talking about them frequently. Bass herself was a burglary victim last year.

She called for more police officers and harsher punishments for abusive officers in order to strike a balance. “We must stop crimes in progress and hold people accountable,” she said in her inaugural address. “Let me be so bold as to add that we can prevent crime and community violence by addressing the social, the health and the economic conditions that compromise a safe environment.”

The results show that the race is headed for a battle for Black votes, with contrasting visions of Vallas and Johnson over policing likely to take center stage.

During the campaign, he tried to avoid the subject, despite being a supporter of defund the police. He has emphasized his plans to build more housing, expand pre-K and increase funding for social services. He is likely to depict Vallas as a conservative who is out of touch with Chicago. The local police union, whose top official is a Donald Trump supporter, has endorsed Vallas.

He said last night at his election night party that he deserved to have a better, stronger, safer Chicago.

The result was a municipal election in which Lightfoot finished third in the nine-person field, with the support of only about one-in-six Chicago voters. She is the first incumbent Chicago mayor to lose reelection in 40 years.

The race’s focus on crime and public safety showed how voters’ attitudes and the city’s concerns had shifted in the four years since Lightfoot had campaigned as a police reformer who would overhaul the way officers are supervised and disciplined.

The outcome made clear that the electorate was focused on public safety. In 2020 and 2021 there was an increase in violence. And though shootings and murders have decreased since then, other crimes – including theft, car-jacking, robberies and burglaries – have increased since last year, according to the Chicago Police Department’s 2022 year-end report.

The lori Lightfoot tragedy of Chicago: A five-week matchup between Vallas and Johnson during the Covid-19 pandemic

Paul Vallas, a former schools chief who preached a tough-on-crime message and Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner with the backing of the influential teachers’ union, advanced to a head to head match-up in five weeks.

The city’s slow economic recovery from the pandemic is also connected to crime. McDonald’s president and chief executive officer Chris Kempczinski said at The Economic Club of Chicago last fall that the chain was struggling to convince potential employees to relocate to work in its West Loop headquarters.

He said that it shows up in many different ways. “Crime becomes pervasive in peoples’ psyche, and it affects us. It is keeping all of us back.

However, the results of 2019’s first round – with the first-place finisher qualifying for the runoff with the support of less than one-in-five Chicago voters – proved to be an omen of Lightfoot’s future difficulties.

She’d won an office that has long been a political lightning rod without a durable base of support. And while her toughness was an asset on the campaign trail, it cost Lightfoot some of the allies she’d gained on her way to victory.

Most importantly, the pugnacious Lightfoot brawled with teacher and police unions before and during the Covid-19 pandemic – battles that ultimately led both groups to back rivals in the 2023 mayor’s race.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/politics/lori-lightfoot-chicago-mayor-race-crime/index.html

The Chicago Police Commission: The Rise of Crime and Homelessness in a City Embedded in the Politics of the Past, Revisited

The union last fall endorsed Johnson, who was relatively unknown outside his Cook County commission district – propelling him in the nine-candidate field.

“Chicago is ready to break with the politics of the past that ignore the needs of our students, their families and school communities,” union President Stacy Davis Gates said of Tuesday’s election results.

The fight focused on overtime pay in the department that had struggled to retain officers and recruit new ones, when she said officers had an “analyzed” amount of time off. It was the latest ugly chapter in years-long tension between police and Lightfoot’s administration as she sought to rein in overtime spending.

On Wednesday, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown announced he will resign in March – which will allow the next mayor to install new leadership at the department.

Bass defeated Caruso in part by offering her own plans to increase the number of police officers on the streets and declare a state of emergency to address a crisis of homelessness.

Vallas and Johnson had their strongest areas in the city’s north side, which is more White, while Lightfoot had her strongest areas in the south and west.

In his speech Tuesday night, Johnson showed signs that he’s going to try to consolidate the liberals who supported someone else. He cited each candidate by name.

He said he wanted a city where the trains run on time and the public schools are staffed adequately, as well as public safety across the city.

CHANG: There was a year-over-year drop in homicides last year, but there was an increase in all crime during her time in office. Is Lightfoot…

Washington. I think it’s a complicated issue. The city has a lot of social and economic problems. There’s not enough of city money being devoted to anti-violence programs, to social service programs. We just went through a flu outbreak. We went through social unrest around the city. And some of that, I think, is responsible for creating the instability. But I think voters expect her to be able to – you know, she’s the mayor. They expect her to be able to solve the problem. There is still a serious issue with crime. And every day you hear about events and incidents, and people are pointing the finger at her.

CHANG: Uhm. Well, let’s talk about the candidates who beat Lightfoot to head into the runoff. Paul Vallas is the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, followed by Brandon Johnson. What are the improvements they’re making to public safety?

It is Washington. This is a very racially diverse city. That’s a good thing, but it’s also a segregated city. People of color tend to vote for other candidates of color, and whites tend to vote with white candidates. Brandon Johnson got areas of the city that were mostly white and conservative to go to while Vallas got areas of the city that were more populated by people of color. There is a discussion about race. There is a debate about haves and have-nots. That’s something that Brandon Johnson talked about in his acceptance speech.

Washington. Paul Vallas would argue that we need to put public safety first, even though he wants to address some of the inequalities in the city.

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