January 17, 2024
"LET'S GO, BRANDON" MEANS MAYOR JOHNSON "BE GONE" TO CHICAGOANS
In the 2024 current state of Chicago politics, the chance the chant “Let’s go, Brandon” taking on a positive connotation at a city sporting event is nil. Even some of the people who voted for Mayor Brandon Johnson are probably counting the days until he’s out of City Hall.
From the optics, it’s possible that Johnson is on a trajectory to be a one-term mayor, of which Chicago has had seven since 1900. He would be joining the ranks of such in-and-out luminaries as Lori Lightfoot, Jane Byrne, Mike Bilandic, William Dever and Edward Dunne who got bounced, respectively, in 2023, 1983, 1979, 1927 and 1907 (see chart). As well as Carter Harrison Jr. and Fred Busse, who bailed in 1915 and 1911 rather than get beat.
The next mayoral election is in 2027 and that means, counting January 2024, Johnson will be mayor for 40 more months until May of that year. The mayor has plenty of time to either do plenty of damage or figure out a way how to do things. “It’s way too early to speculate” about 2027, said alderman Nick Sposato (38th), “or to think about an (Johnson) opponent.” According to Sposato, Chicago has passed the point where it can “elect a moderate or White mayor.”
But a few possible names that could surface, including Alderman Bill Conway (34th), who lost to Kim Foxx in 2020 but won his River North seat in 2023. His father is a multi-millionaire equity investment banker who could fund his son’s mayoral bid. In 2023 Johnson spent around $7 million, Paul Vallas $9 million and Lightfoot $5.5 million. Other names may include Samantha Nugent (39th) and Matt Martin (47th), but both would have to forfeit their council seats (as would Conway) to run. A no-forfeit run against Toni Preckwinkle in 2026 is more feasible for all three.
A multiplicity of candidates (and runoff) is needed to beat Johnson, whose problem is that he seems temperamentally unsuited to be an administrator. As mayor, he is clearly befuddled and perplexed when questioned. He does not espouse solutions to problems; he seems to finds somebody to blame. An example, said Sposato, is the migrant crisis stemming from the open southern border. Johnson and his council allies have refused to suspend Chicago’s self-proclaimed sanctuary city status, which ultimately leads to city-paid provision of food, shelter, medical services and education to asylum-seekers.
About 100 migrants arrive daily by bus from Texas. That brought the total in the city more than 30,000 in the past year, costing about $40 million-per-month, or close to $500 million annually in a fiscal 2024 budget of $16.6 billion.
But that’s just a trickle compared to New York City, which gets 500-1,000 migrants-a-day by bus, spending well over $1 billion to shelter over 100,000 migrants them annually. It’s likewise in LA. Over 8.5 million migrants have come since 2021 and another 10 million will arrive if Biden-Harris stays in power through 2028.
That would be politically catastrophic for Johnson in 2027 (as it will be for NYC’s mayor Eric Adams in 2025) because it alienates his political identity base (Blacks and Latinos), who want city resources for themselves as citizens and taxpayers, but not his ideological base (Woke/Leftist White Gen X, Y and Zers and near North Side Puerto Ricans), who want DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) for everybody, including non-citizens, as long as “government” -- meaning “the wealthy,” not them – pays for it. .
The mindset of Johnson and some city bureaucrats, according to Sposato, is a remain-in-Texas policy. Never mind that Brownsville or Eagle Pass, TX are cities smaller than Aurora and that incoming migrants outnumber the residents. The migrants want jobs, and there aren’t many in Texas – or, for that matter, in Chicago. The Democratic National Convention is in Chicago this summer and will showcase Johnson’s failures. It will bring out the worse of Chicago on the streets to prove a point.
Johnson is the son of a preacher; he was educated as a teacher and taught social studies until he hooked-on with the Chicago Teachers Union as a well-paid union organizer in 2011. He got noticed for his efforts in the 2012 Chicago teacher’s strike. He resides in Austin and in 2017 got recruited (and funded) by county board president Toni Preckwinkle (D) to challenge commissioner Richard Boykin, a persistent Preckwinkle critic (especially on her sales tax hikes) in the West Side/Oak Park 1st District. Johnson won the primary by 437 votes and thereafter was a loyal Preckwinkle flunky.
The mayor is an ideological Woke/Leftist who champions identity politics. He won in 2023 because (1) the thoroughly unlikeable Lightfoot got bogged-down in the COVID crisis and was never able to establish herself as a “reform” mayor, which was her original goal; (2) congressman Chuy Garcia (D-4), who lost for mayor in 2015 and was supposed to be 2023’s “progressive” savior dawdled until December 2022 before announcing; (3) which caused the CTU and their grass-roots precinct operation United Working Families (UWF) to get antsy about having a candidate to beat Lightfoot and began circulating mayoral petitions for Johnson, their back-up; and (4) Johnson was then able to tap into the city’s Woke/Left movement, getting 122,093 votes in the election.
Johnson got enough votes to finish second to Paul Vallas, with 21.6 percent, to Lightfoot’s 16.8 and Vallas’s 32.9. Johnson got barely a third of the vote in the Black-majority wards and as low as a quarter in the low-turnout Southwest Side Mexican-American wards. But he got close to 40 percent in the north Lakefront White wards (46, 47, 48, 49, 40) and west Puerto Rican wards (26, 30, 33, 35).
In the ensuing runoff Johnson got 75-80 percent in the Black wards and a like amount on the north Lakefront, enough to win 318,007-292,055, a margin of 25,952 votes over the White guy. That coalition WILL NOT be enough to re-elect Johnson in 2027 IF the migrant situation remains unresolved. An Oct. 2023 poll by Illinois Policy Institute gave Johnson a 28/50 approve/disapprove, which is lower than Joe Biden’s 33/58 in a Jan. 13 ABC/Ipsos poll.
The coming test will be November’s Chicago school board election, concurrent with the presidential vote. The CTU and AFT will be all-in – as they will be in 2027.
As depicted in the chart, one-termers invariably got booted because of a single issue: Lightfoot lost in 2023 because COVID infected her term. Byrne (D) lost in 1983 because she tampered with the school board, infuriated Blacks, spawned Washington’s candidacy and split the White vote with Richard J. Daley. Washington won with 37 percent amid a huge Black turnout. Bilandic (D) lost in 1979 because he failed to keep side-streets passable after record snowfall during Jan.-Feb. 1979. Byrne was his only opponent, and she won by 18,000 votes. If Johnson doesn’t solve the city’s migrant crisis in a sensible way, and it goes on an on, this could be his 1979 snowstorm.
Dever (D) lost in 1927 to the corrupt, mob-backed Thompson (R) because he tried to enforce Prohibition and Chicagoans wanted their booze and amusements. Thompson then lost in 1931 to Anton Cermak (D) because Chicago had become a national laughingstock, replete with Mob killings and corruption. The Chicago Tribune called Thompson a “buffoon.” He was Al Capone’s pal. When he died $1.8 million in cash was found in his home. Busse (R) was another Mob stooge. He beat Dunne (D) in 1907 because Dunne was too much of a Catholic puritanical do-gooder. Dunne got elected governor in 1912, the only Chicago mayor to ever do so.
The demise of multi-termers was mostly because of death or voter fatigue. Daley II was mayor for 22 years, Kelly for 14. Daley I and Washington died. Kennelly was dumped by the Daley-led Democrats in 1955. Emanuel reportedly suppressed the 2014 Laquan McDonald shooting to get re-elected in 2015, but he would have been toast in 2019 and he knew it. As for Johnson, he s got a lot more time to screw-up. Or get it right.
Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com
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