Rahm Emanuel wins re-election as Mayor of Chicago with 56 percent of the vote in April 7, 2015 runoff
After an enormous six-week campaign in which he spent more than $10 million, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel won re-election on April 7, 2015, by a comfortable margin. At midnight on election night, Emanuel's challenger, Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia had conceded defeat and congratulated Emanuel. The mayor's second term will begin when he is sworn in in May 2015. With 98 percent of precincts counted just before midnight, Emanuel led Mr. Garcia 56 percent to 44 percent.
Despite support from the President of the United States in the February 27, 2015 primary election, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel had to spend more than $10 million in order to secure his office in the April 7 runoff. Barack Obama came to Chicago twice to campaign for Emanuel before the February 27 vote, but after Emanuel failed to get the majority vote needed to win, the president stayed out of the picture. The photo above was published by The Wall Street Journal prior to the February 27 voting."For Mr. Emanuel, 55, it was a narrow escape from what could have been an embarrassing loss to Mr. Garcia, a feisty former alderman and community organizer who for months hammered Mr. Emanuel for closing dozens of public schools and claimed the mayor ignored the working class and poor in the nation’s third-largest city," The New York Times reported in a story posted on line before midnight.
Emanuel's battle to hold the office after he was forced into the runoff by not receiving a majority of the votes in the February 24 election quickly became national news, with Emanuel receiving the support of some of the wealthiest men in the USA. Emanuel was also endorsed editorially by the city's two major daily newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. The Garcia campaign was largely led by organizations in the city's growing Latino community and by the Chicago Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). While the Emanuel campaign deployed a large number of precinct workers across the city on election day, the "ground game" as it came to be called was almost equal, according to numerous sources across the city.
Comments:
By: Rod Estvan
Any lessons learned?
It has to be said that Mayor Emanuel went into this run off with high negative numbers especially for his abrasive nature. Unfortunately I think there has to be a realization that the poor and disenfranchised of Chicago do not have sufficent electoral weight to win control over City Hall based on an agenda aimed to advance their interests.
Chicago has as the Commissioner pointed out in a speech that Substance posted become more and more a city for the more wealthy and the poor with the working class of all races escaping to less expensive suburban areas or lower cost regions with higher levels of employment for non-college graduates. Once we get the electoral data I think it will become obvious that citizens of Chicago with incomes above the medium voted overwhelmingly for Emanuel.
These lessons and many other lessons need to be digested before class war again is declared in the form of a Mayoral campaign. Emanuel is not Mayor 1%, but something more like Mayor 35%. But that 35% protect their precived interests and are unwilling to pay for additional police for lower income communities, for increased educational opportunities for lower income communities, and increased social services for the poor. It is not a pretty picture.
Rod Estvan
By: Jean Schwab
Election
How depressing! At least some of the progressives won alderman seats.