Lori Lightfoot, the Democratic mayor of Chicago, said that “right-wing forces” and racism were to blame for her massive loss in the race.
Lightfoot won the city’s mayoral race by a large margin four years ago, but he didn’t make it to the vote this year. He will leave office next week. Brandon Johnson, the former left-wing commissioner of Cook County who beat Paul Vallas, the more reasonable former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, will take over.
Lightfoot said in an interview with MSNBC on Monday that she lost because national political turmoil caused divides in Chicago, which she admits is a “deep-blue Democratic city.”
“We came up short, but I leave my office with my head held high,” she said. “I think we showed our city and the rest of the country how to make equity work, whether it was through historic investments in affordable housing, the environment, our youth, or coming up with a way to make sure people were safe that didn’t just rely on law enforcement.”
Even so, crime went up a lot during Lightfoot’s four years in office. There were 490 homicides in the Windy City in 2019, the year Lightfoot took office. That number jumped to 772 in 2020 and 800 in 2021, a rise of more than 58%, as Black Lives Matter protests happened all over the country after the death of George Floyd. Lightfoot has 71 police officers given to her personal police unit to protect her life. In the meantime, she has suggested cutting $80 million from the budget of the Chicago Police Department in 2020.
Al Sharpton, who works for MSNBC, asked Lightfoot if she thought her race had anything to do with her loss, even though her replacement is also black. Lightfoot has said that her loss was because of her race and because she is a lesbian. She also said that former President Donald Trump’s plan to get re-elected was to attack “cities and mayors” like herself, citing Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta and Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C.
“There’s no doubt, Reverend Al, that there are people in Chicago and all over the country who don’t want mayors like me to do well,” she said next. “When the guy with the loudest voice and the biggest stage hits you in the way that Trump did, it sets off a lot of hard-to-control forces. The dog whistles that were blown in 2020 are still being heard today. They were fueled by fear and anger, and they were paid for by right-wing groups that wanted to get rid of a big-city mayor.
Lightfoot said that Republicans had worked together to end her career, but she also said that her replacement is even more left-wing than she was. “Unfortunately, the people who voted for a Republican who was pretending to be a Democrat now have a democratic socialist as mayor, so be careful what you wish for,” she said.
A study from the Tax Foundation found that Chicago has the second-highest total state and local sales tax rates in the country. This is on top of the city’s poor safety record. A study from the Illinois Policy Institute says that Lightfoot wanted to raise property taxes, but she changed her mind before running for office again. During her time as mayor, big businesses like Tyson, Boeing, Caterpillar, and the hedge fund Citadel said they were leaving the city, even though Lightfoot said on her campaign website that she created “an environment that supports and sustains entrepreneurs and workers who make Chicago their home.”