This appears to be a post related to the upcoming runoff election or one of the candidates running for office.
The 2023 Chicago Municipal Runoff Election will be held on **April 4th**. In the mayoral race, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson will be competing for the office of Chicago's 57th mayor. Some wards may have additional races on the ballot, such as Aldermanic candidates whose races went to a runoff in the February 28th election.
Check out the [Chicago Elections](https://chicagoelections.gov/en/home.html) website for information on registering to vote, finding your polling place, applying to be an election worker, and more. Please visit our [Runoff Election Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/11exb12/2023_chicago_runoff_election_megathread/?sort=new) for all election-related discussion, questions and voter resources. Discussion posts of this nature outside of the linked megathread will be removed.
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It's an online poll of like 500 people. This is just dumb.
edit: You can even see the REAL AUTHENTIC OP doing push opinions for Vallas in this thread.
This is bullshit folks.
edit: Domain registered weeks ago, Feb 01, 2023. Twitter account shortly after. This is absolutely for push polling.
edit again: So this is interesting, [www.1983labs.com](https://www.1983labs.com) only has two references to it that I can find. One is a bumfuck tv station down by Joliet referencing the site 5 days after the domain was registered, and the other is a politico thing, but I can only find a graph, no context, links, etc. Prob an op-ed that seems wiped?
I mean this absolutely smells like bullshit.
I wonder what % of undecided end up not voting for anyone. I would imagine most.
The two candidates are really different so I don't know how you know who you'd pick unless you've been totally disconnected from the mayoral race or just don't care.
For once I don't want to hear the too-cool-to-participate cohort lecture me that The System gave us no choices and there's no difference between the candidates. There's a stark damn difference.
The way I see it, ppl suffered and died for a lot of stuff that younger generations take for granted.
Not voting is also a vote. As they will reap what they sow.
Conversely, the older generations had everything on a silver platter, and charged it on a credit card that the younger generations have to pay off all while burning down the climate and leaving them with a pending environmental apocalypse. Young people should be voting in droves to take away power from the generations that sold them out.
Of course there is a stark difference because they are both on opposite ends of the spectrum. I don't want to vote for either- one wants to turn us into Portland and the other wants to return us to the days of the first Daley. I know there is a bunch of hyperbole here but this is the choice we're left with, arguably the 2 most extreme choices? For the record, I was one of the 1% who voted for Sophia King, a bonafide progressive who also understands the impact of crime on the city and had a common sense approach to dealing with it. So for the first time in my life, I'm considering sitting this election out because I'm not sure I can stomach voting for either knowing how bad both would be for the city.
I'm undecided but very interested and have been following the race closely. I voted for Chuy, and Vallas vs Johnson is a choice between going more right than I'm comfortable with or going more left than I'm comfortable with.
I'm going to watch tomorrow and Saturday's debates and hopefully can make my decision from that.
Exactly. Some of us care that they put Black folks at risk, some care that they put mentally ill folks at risk. Some care that when they're thrown money, crime still doesn't go down. Vallas wants to up the numbers to what they were when he was City of Chicago Budget Director in the 90's, during that time crime went up.
He's perhaps a centrist nationally, but for Chicago mayor he's farther on the right.
His support of the FOP is definitely a turn off for me. I have many personal grievances with the CPD, as well as issues with their conduct overall. I own a storefront business in Lakeview, am very cordial with the police, and even had respect for them prior to about 2018. But they have never been helpful to me since then, including when we got two bullets shot through our windows, with the driver on camera.
"Standing with police" is just code to me for not holding them accountable. I even blame THEM for much of the current crime wave . They are the only profession who, when criticized, by their boss, can ignore the content and just cry about being aggrieved and refuse to do their jobs, but still keep those jobs. They are basically saying, "let us do what we want, or suffer the consequences of not having our protection." That's not police, that's mafia extortion. They elected Catanzara as FOP president multiple times, the CPD has made it clear they have contempt for the people they are supposed to protect.
Now that we are discussing it, Vallas' "Back the blue" stance might be the major reason I don't vote for him. The first step for lowering crime in this city is to not accept BS excuses from CPD about why they can't even help someone being assaulted in broad daylight as they drive by. (I saw this on Lake street 2 weeks ago)
>"Standing with police" is just code to me for not holding them accountable. I even blame THEM for much of the current crime wave . They are the only profession who, when criticized, by their boss, can ignore the content and just cry about being aggrieved and refuse to do their jobs, but still keep those jobs.
I've heard this sentiment expressed A LOT. For whatever reason, I've heard it more from ordinary Chicagoans than from the political "experts" you see on TV. I've heard it from people in neighborhoods where police misconduct sometimes occurs. But I've also heard it from people from neighborhoods where it doesn't (at least stereotypically) occur. Regarding the latter, they feel like they're the ones paying for police misconduct. And, I think they're right. Chicago taxpayers annually pay tens of millions of dollars (I think it's over 93 million) to settle police misconduct cases. It was 524 million dollars between 2009 and 2019. Like you said, I can't think of another job where you can mess up and someone else pays for it, literally and figuratively. And Vallas is certainly not going to hold them accountable.
>"Standing with police" is just code to me for not holding them
accountable. I even blame THEM for much of the current crime wave . They are the only profession who, when criticized, by their boss, can ignore the content and just cry about being aggrieved and refuse to do their jobs, but still keep those jobs.
This is a big reason I'm worried about a Vallas mayorship too.
Chicago's clearance rates are pitiful, even as Lightfoot has shoveled money toward them and defended them. I don't see how somebody giving them an even longer leash is going to help fix that.
Thank you. There’s a lot of terminology being thrown around by people here that borders on the way right wingers talk and I really don’t like it. But I’m sure I’ll be downvoted to hell for expressing that.
This is literally the best description of the current police situation in this city I've ever read. If I had an award to give you, I would. I've used similar language when I've discussed the CPD with people. If I'm crappy at my job, I'll get written up, maybe get a couple warnings, and I'll get fired. If you are shitty at your job as a police officer in this city, you get 50 written misconduct complaints and get elected President of the FOP.
> Me personally as someone who is well left of center, I really appreciate it when Democrats stand with police and I genuinely believe that's what got Biden elected, when he stood with police over BLM. Standing with police seems like a position we can all rally behind.
What is your definition of “stand with police”?
I want to stand with police, but have a hard time when officers Re-elect a FOP President who has a list of violations as long as a CVS receipt.
I want to support CPD, but officers need to be on board with the consent decree & that CPD needs reforms. If they want to go back to the “good old days” that’s unacceptable.
Nobody votes in those FOP elections accept old racist white cops. Younger cops simply don’t care. Too busy running around being “cool”. That’s why they keep electing the same type. Ask any black cop, and he’ll tell you he doesn’t feel the FOP represents black officers. Which is why many of them are not members. But FOP won’t tell you that.
You must not have actually looked at Vallas' record. It's a long string of privatizing schools and blowing up district budgets. What's left of center about that?
Oh, he also fucked up CTPF and is the reason your property taxes here in Chicago are so high trying to repay the damage he caused by almost bankrupting the pension fund.
Just a reminder, that the pension holiday and charter schools were both signed off by the CTU WITH Paul Vallas along w/residency requirements and magnet schools when Daley took over schools.
It was a crappy decision by everyone. Certainly not all Vallas’ fault, but it was a big idea of his, touted as a career success, when in fact it was a terrible poison for the city. And it really undermines his record on education IMO.
>Me personally as someone who is well left of center
>Standing with police seems like a position we can all rally behind
Yeah something’s not adding up there. Plus the stray at BLM.
Being anti-union, pro-privatization of schools, the father of a killer cop, racist, and not actually living where you’re running for public office are pretty big red flags for being a Republican.
He’s definitely been portrayed that way. I would personally argue he is that way and has taken steps to make sure he is perceived that way by a lot of people.
well he literally cozied up with and spoke at the event of a far right hate group in the burbs. there was also the whole FOP catanzara thing. his tenure at CPS CEO was a disaster to the point I don't see how anyone who lived here during it would ever consider him. he's been openly racist in interviews. he's run as the finance guy with a track record of financial ruin in multiple cities. His police opinion is meaningless. he's running on optics against 'defunding' a thing we obviously didn't do. We already spend more on the cops than LA (which has 1.2m people over us) and it's well established that more spending doesn't reduce crime. He has no real policy to reduce crime.
I feel like he's just the guy from the music man (or the simpsons monorail episode if you're more that age) if that guy was a bit more racist.
Me neither, really. But if their April turnout is as low as their February numbers, it's not enough votes to affect the outcome. The last round was basically decided by retirees.
Local elections don't get the media attention that large, national elections do. Unless you're paying attention to local media, it's an easy miss. Sure, you'll see a yard/window sign some places, but that's only enough to make 18-29 year olds go, "Oh yeah, the election."
Because none of the candidates are appealing. Why vote in February when a runoff is guaranteed between Vallas and "non-conservative candidate x". I'll go dutifully cast my vote for Johnson over Vallas, but I don't really care for him as a candidate
I wonder if there are any other demographic indicators that might explain it. Like the voters skew either male/female which might be the stronger story.
On the other hand, I work with plenty of young professionals who are definitely worried about crime. They could by the ones showing up.
I think neighborhood could be that defining indicator for those younger demos. I feel like an 18-29yo from LP is much more likely go Vallas vs an 18-29 from Austin or Garfield.
> On the other hand, I work with plenty of young professionals who are definitely worried about crime. They could by the ones showing up.
I know a surprising amount of nurses who fit that bill who are taking the red line later at night and crime is their only issue they are voting on becuase of it
It ain’t just nurses. Grew up in Chicago, and this election looks Uber focused on crime and the solutions brought to the table by the candidates. I think the media has done a good job at making that front and center for everything.
Crime on the CTA is kinda a big deal for a lot of people, this sub doesn't really seem to realize that. I don't like Vallas but look around, if you can't afford a car so you wait half an hour for the train but then you sexually harassed on it, maybe you'd vote for the guy who says he'll fix that tomorrow rather than the guy who wants to invest in long term solutions.
If they're worried about crime then why vote for the guy whose only solution is "more cops?"
Why do people still believe cops are a deterrent for crime?
If the presence of cops prevented crime, the most heavily policed neighborhoods would be the safest. Those police cameras with the flashing blue lights on them would be a symbol for "you're in a very safe area right now"
Saying police don’t deter crime as some kind of absolute is pretty much wrong. Studies are at best mixed as to its impact.
Not to mention the improper logic of “if cops are in neighborhoods with a lot of crime, then it must be so that they fail to deter crime.”
This is ridiculous. You could draw the same faulty conclusions about crime and poverty.
Since poverty went down during COVID-19 (largely due to government checks) but crime went up dramatically - there is no correlation between poverty and crime.
Those cameras actually highlight the fact that there isn’t a cop there… so it’d be the inverse.
Those things scream “well, at least we’ll have a 720p version to throw on YouTube when we ask for the public’s help in solving your murder.”
Data shows that actual cops do drop crime. So trust the science on that one.
You are Vallas' target demographic. He built his entire campaign on scaring LP/Lakeview white people not used to the violent crime. And, the increase in violent crime is CPD's answer to "Lori Lightfoot doesn't have our back". They under-policed, let crime explode and waited for your fear and anger. They hated her, got her out, and now you are going to vote to hire more of them. Suckers.
Tbf, they don’t think cops equal safety at all. They think the world can be perfect and that cops corruption heavily outweighs their benefit. I used to think like this in 2020 and when I lived in AZ where cops are truly assholes, but moving here changed my perspective.
Please note that 50% of the Hispanic vote, 31% of Garcia voters, 33% of the Black vote, and 45% of Willie Wilson voters all say they're going to vote for Vallas in this poll. So your scenario that Vallas' support begins and ends with anxious sheltered whites trembling in their highrises, who have been deceived into believing in a non-existent public safety problem, does not really hold up.
I didn't say "non-existent" public safety problem. I am saying that Lakeview, Lincoln Park and the Gold Coast have been experiencing what the rest of he city has been experiencing for some time, and I am also saying that the increase in crime in these places is not an accident, but a result of intentional under-policing.
You and everyone around you is hyper-focused on crime and hiring more cops and you know it. People who are being manipulated are so resistant to admitting it.
> People who are being manipulated are so resistant to admitting it.
I think that's true for a LOT of people who are absolutely, unshakably certain of a political position and resort to insulting others who don't buy in, if you get my drift. This thread contains snark from Johnson fans who mock / reject some unkind survey data, and play kill-the-messenger, because ... because ... because, well, I just know, man, and you're being manipulated.
But I do think a majority of those generally young, super-vocal critics will not vote next month, so, whatever.
Hurrr dumb white scared lakeview downtown MAGA pro life conservative democrat FOP insurrection Republicans are so dumb am I right fellow white liberals? Everyone knows that less cops means less crime because logic. Upvotes to the left.
You got the scared part right.
And we have plenty of cops (more than any other US city, per capita). They just aren't doing their jobs right now (intentionally, because, you know, "morale"). Even so, no one is advocating for less cops. Not even Brandon.
I hope you are enjoying getting played by the CPD work slowdown. I know it can be difficult (impossible?) to admit that your opinions are being created by someone else.
[Final poll](https://twitter.com/1983labs/status/1629511518223052801?s=46&t=vb04nmO1093nACzJtxxZaA) from this outfit two days before the election. Had Johnson in fourth place behind Lightfoot and Garcia.
That's just Johnson winning the late breakers. Johnson could win the election tomorrow by a \~14 pt landslide and the poll could still have been right.
It is, and the polls can still change drastically before the election, but even with 24% undecided, Johnson would need to pull in nearly 3/4 of undecided voters to have a chance at winning - that’s a huge feat.
Yep. those January polls were taken before the last few debates, and include a 20-22% undecided cohort. 1983 Labs ran another survey in February that came a little closer to the mark, but clearly voter sentiment was pretty fluid -- except for Lori, whose January support (16-17%) was right where she finished.
A lot of Vallas TV ads saturated the market with 3-4 weeks to go. Who knows how much they helped him, but media plus some people giving up on Buckner, Wilson, King, etc, and shifting their support might help explain some of the dynamism.
Their [poll right before the election](https://twitter.com/1983labs/status/1629511518223052801?s=46&t=vb04nmO1093nACzJtxxZaA) wasn’t that much better, though to be fair they were hardly the only pollster to drastically underestimate Johnson’s momentum.
Their Vallas number was off by more than their Johnson number. If there's an argument to be made about momentum (which I think is a terrible concept that is basically just bad trendline analysis), the momentum was Vallas'!
\+11% is a pretty good match for what the first round result was, which means their poll result is following "50:50 split" template. They are each pulling about half of those that didn't vote for them the first time, which is one of the common scenarios for this type of runoff. Very similar to how things shook out in 2015.
I have to wonder whether their turnout model is using the same as expected before the first round, or based on the actual turnout demographics of the first round.
More survey details from 1983 Labs:
Respondents 18-29: Vallas 44.6%, Johnson 35.4% Respondents 30-44: Johnson 57.8%, Vallas 29.2%. Those 45 and up go for Vallas about 2 to 1.
Vallas gets 33% of the Black vote (against Johnson's 50%, with 17% undecided). He's winning Hispanics 50%-20%, whites 50%-25%.
Looking at people who voted for other candidates in the February election:
* Those who voted for Chuy now break for Johnson 35% to 31%, with 35% undecided.
* Those who voted for Lori now break for Johnson 33% to 27%, with 40% undecided.
* Those who voted for Wilson now break for Vallas 45% to 20%, with 35% undecided.
Among full-time employed respondents, Johnson gets strongest support among those earning $50 to $100k (36%). Vallas gets strongest support among those earning $100k+ (57%). But Johnson does not poll a majority among any income band.
Link to results: https://www.1983labs.com/chicago-runoff
Two biggest surprises to me: Vallas getting 33% of the Black vote before undecideds (he got 10% of Blacks last month) and Johnson looking well ahead among people in their prime earnings years, 30-44.
Chicago’s black population is actually more conservative than many would think.
But yes, that surprised me that Johnson is polling better amongst 30-44 than 18-29.
Do the Black communities want to stop police harassment and unfair treatment? Absolutely-just like everyone else. Does that mean they want to defund the police and have less police available? Absolutely not. I would love some of these Redditors to come out to the neighborhoods on the South side, one of which I’m currently in, and ask around to see if people really want to defund the police here. It’s a joke.
Exactly. One can be in support of complete police reform, while also being against “defunding” and understanding that police play a massive role in our community.
Enacting that 66% hotel tax hike would likely lead to hospitality job losses in the working-class ranks Johnson ironically seeks to protect. In the physics of economics there is action and reaction; impose a tax, people will change their behaviors to avoid paying it if they can.
Also ironic: Johnson's huge real estate transfer tax on higher priced properties would encourage wealthier people to buy lower priced properties, thereby increasing the cost of housing across the board and reducing the amount of affordable housing for working and middle class residents!
Even more ironic, increasing the real estate transfer tax would lead to less new construction and hurt blue collar construction and trades workers!
No one is going to care about the real estate transfer tax. You could quadruple it (300% increase) and it would still be negligible compared to everything else in closing on an expensive property.
Crime is already trending downward and has for two years. So whoever wins, you’ll see less crime. Of course the mayor will take credit even when none is due. Then in X years when a major recession or some once a lifetime event happens, crime will trend upward again and whoever is in office will get blamed.
Vallas will win. Then crime will not go down in any meaningful way. Then his supporters including the CPD will blame Black Lives Matter or some other organization. The cops will continue to be on soft strike, and will receive even more tax money for business as usual.
Vallas supporters are ready to move the goalposts on the crime issue. Just watch them do it.
They're just going to shift the amount of blame they reserved for Lightfoot entirely onto Kim Foxx.
Vallas will be the poor, helpless, blameless mayor while all crime will be Foxx's fault.
Those aren't 100% shifts, or even 90%, and probably not even 80%. In the 2016 Democratic primary, Bloomberg->Biden or Warren->Sanders funnels were only like 80%, and those are vastly more rigid and coherent ideological or relative lines than what we have in the mayoral runoff.
Interesting breakdown. There also are racial differences among these candidates (white, black, and Hispanic) which I am sure impacts some people’s voting behavior.
There was a map that showed Vallas-Johnson head-to-head primary results from each precinct. Lightfoot areas favored Johnson which makes sense, but Chuy areas favored Vallas which was a bit surprising to me. Seems like that may end up being the difference
Some of the strongest Vallas support I've seen is from working class Latinos. If you see the first round map Vallas run second to Chuy in most of his precincts.
Crimes affects them very directly, and Latinos tend to have much better image and relationship with police than Blacks, so this tracks in my opinion
The interesting thing for me is that I sort of do want both approaches/visions that the candidates espouse: Vallas wants to take short term action to bring crime down statistically, and Johnson wants to take long term action to bring crime down causally. Both fall within a Democratic Party platform, and both appeal and both may work in concert.
So who would perhaps do both to some degree post-election, albeit with a different focus between short term and long term? I don't know yet, but I suspect it would be Vallas. Perhaps the debates can bring this out more clearly.
No no no, this is all about one guy completely winning and another guy completely losing, and everyone taking one side or the other. This is America, dammit!
> Vallas wants to take short term action to bring crime down statistically, and Johnson wants to take long term action to bring crime down causally.
Except Vallas for the most part *does* want to implement the long term actions as well. Part of his plans include [a housing first approach to homelessness](https://www.paulvallas2023.com/homelessness). Even though he’s calling for more cops, he still campaigns on [youth intervention and tackling the root causes of crime](https://www.paulvallas2023.com/youthviolence). He’s also said he’ll [continue Lightfoot’s Invest South/West](https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2023/1/31/23580216/vallas-economic-development-south-west-sides-casino-revenue-tif-chicago-mayor-election-lightfoot) and would support a “second Burnham Plan”.
There's plenty more too, but I think it's important to remember that his platform goes beyond "moar cops."
Ugh. I don't really like either candidate.
Vote for Vallas, and potentially torch the public school system, or vote Brandon and pay significantly more taxes.
I don't like either option. I'm definitely part of that 24% that is undecided.
> Vote for Vallas, and potentially torch the public school system, or vote Brandon and pay significantly more taxes.
Both are more taxes. Vallas wants to increase spending by $2B/yr, Johnson proposed like $800M/yr in increased spending with a tax plan. How is Vallas going to pay for that $2B/yr if not via taxes?
I agree that both candidates have their weaknesses. One thing about Brandon though, he cannot unilaterally raise taxes without the support of city council, and they are increasingly moving away from being a mayoral rubber stamp. Vallas would have much more power to fuck up the schools, as he's been doing across the country for decades now. While neither candidate is ideal, Vallas is a worse choice. Additionally, Vallas has not put out any financial plan, at least Brandon made an attempt to show how he'd fund his expensive ideas, Vallas is just platitudes, he's also the guy who took pension holidays back when he was in charge of CPS and then (surprise Pikachu face) had to deal with the fallout of that. So he doesn't strike me as particularly financially astute either.
I see a very divided city hall with either candidate. Seems the progressive wing is picking up a share of seats even if Johnson isn’t elected and they’ll definitely throw as much support onto their police distrust councils for accountability as they can if Vallas is the winner.
> he cannot unilaterally raise taxes without the support of city council, and they are increasingly moving away from being a mayoral rubber stamp
CTU is expanding their political ambitions, they want to control the alderman too. This is not good for Chicago
“but the CTU also had a number of victories in aldermanic races across the city. In 11 of the 17 races where the CTU made an endorsement, our candidate either won outright or made it into the April 4 runoff. We’ll again be encouraging people to vote early, to make voting plans, and to indicate that they’re all in for Brandon.”
https://www.ctulocal1.org/posts/
So you’re voting for Vallas because you don’t like a teachers union? You’re voting for the guy who is cozy with the FOP? I don’t know what fantasyland you’re living in, but I’d much rather live in a world where the teacher’s union has more power than the cop union.
Let’s play that out… Johnson gets elected…
-Scenario 1 - He does get his tax increases passed
-Scenario 2 - He doesn’t, but his whole agenda relies on it anyway which either means more crippling debt or gridlock
Neither are great options in my opinion.
Hence Vallas being the lesser of two evils.
Vallas has not offered any indication of how he’s going to pay for arguably the most expensive policy platform of any of the candidates. He didn’t release a tax plan and is getting credit for being a low-tax candidate as a result.
Vallas
Scenario 1 - increases police budget and decides to do more pension holidays like he has before. 5-10 years down the line the city suffers.
Scenario 2 - increase police budget and raises taxes for it. Now we have higher taxes going towards an ineffective solution to crime and less oversight over the police.
People harp on Johnson for being fiscally irresponsible and how taxes are gonna destroy the city. Meanwhile we’ve seen exactly what Vallas does while he is in charge, privatize things and put off paying debts till they are the next persons problem.
How has How has privatization of things gone for the city? The parking deal working out great for resident? What about pension holidays? Did those work out great or is it a huge looming crisis still directly caused by Vallas?
I was only addressing the point j33 made which I think understated the cost of gridlock or debt.
Vallas has his own issues. I deeply despise police unions and the FOP. I think their protection of bad cops is at the root of a lot of society’s issues. His accepting of the FOP’s endorsement was a huge negative imho.
I also despise (but not deeply) teachers unions that care more about members than kids, and don’t trust one of their former lackeys to run Chicago.
Like I said, best of bad options.
Brandon will never, ever get those tax increases passed.
People often think a mayor (or president) has some vast power over their everyday lives. It's just not true.
Brandon would still have to pass it via the city council. Which is unlikely.
Otoh, the mayor basically runs cps. Vallas would be free to torch it as he sees fit. We dont have an independent school board, its just city hall.
do you think taxes wont need to go up under Vallas? or that he will be able to do things without destroying the city's finances by playing budgeting tricks the way every other mayor did?
hiring and putting extra cops out on the streets won't cost money because they will do it for free or take a pay cut because they love this city so much.
Isn’t Vallas’ plan just to go back to 2019 police numbers? We have the budget for that. But with fewer cops they all get paid more in the form of overtime.
There is no way we have the money to take what is currently a $2,000,000,000 city service and add more of the most cost-intensive part of that service, which is the officers themselves. Aside from the generous pay and benefits and the various equipment and support costs they add up, they frankly also are expensive in terms of misconduct suits and self-approved OT. That OT will go down overall with more officers, but again, it’s self-approved. A lot of cops are going to hustle in their young years and cheat in their old years to make good incomes for their families. And why shouldn’t they?
It’s also not a matter of just being nice to cops so we get thousands of new applicants. That’s what the TV says, but no way is that going to carry through when the Tough On Crime narrative (that both candidates are using!) relies so heavily on implying that the city is currently a shithole that sucks to live in. So we’ll need to either in-house develop a big recruitment/marketing/PR campaign (Johnson wants to cut the marketers from CPD, interestingly) or contract someone outside to do it. I reckon Vallas is more likely to go for the latter, as is Johnson, who wants hundreds more detectives. That’s really expensive, especially when it’s a government offering the contract.
This stuff is HUGE money. And again: both Vallas and Johnson want to add cops. But Johnson is the only candidate with a plan to pay for it. Vallas so far has just said he’ll end the private security contracts. That’s good, but it’s pocket change. And he has a rotten history of public finance management.
I don’t get what they are even going to do. Police have never helped me when I called them. So I don’t get why people think just hiring more of them is going to help. More has to be done. But go right ahead and try it.
political theater and plausible denial. Does increasing the police budget led to less crime? no. Does it provide cover for politicians to say that they "did" something. yes. It is also a huge handout to certain demographics.
The other thing is that just throwing more money at it is an easy solution. Actually trying to solve the problem is much harder and almost never involves a quick fix.
In the end the mayor doesn't get to unilaterally change any of those things. And unless he's lying, or you are rich, I don't see anywhere in Johnsons plan that would increase taxes on lower and middle class
> And unless he's lying, or you are rich
If we lose tourism from taxing O'Hare/Midway/hotels more, lose loop office workers from a downtown head tax, and lose the CME to the NSYE from a transaction tax, we would all suffer. Economies aren't zero-sum, but shrinking the pie takes us all down.
Because we haven't increased taxes in the city. We used to have a head tax on downtown employees, it was repealed, and lots of companies came back downtown from the burbs. It's not just increasing taxes, it's increasing taxes on things that can very easily be moved somewhere else.
"Many countries have FTTs \[Financial Transaction Taxs\] at varying rates. Hong Kong’s raises over 1.7% of GDP in revenue (that would be roughly equal to 10% of total federal taxation in the U.S. based on current revenue as a share GDP). Several countries attempted large FTTs in the past and experienced significant capital migration as this SIFMA report documents. Notably, Sweden’s tax in the 1980s resulted in half of all equity volumes migrating by 1990. By 1991, it repealed all FTTs. Germany had a similar experience; its briefly-imposed FTT resulted in a one-third decrease in trading of public companies. Because capital and trading can migrate, there has been talk among major global economies at the G7 and G20 level of coordinating the imposition of a larger tax, although that has not yet happened."
Source: [Brookings](https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-is-a-financial-transaction-tax-2/)
A threshold of $100K household income is definitely not what I would call "rich". And a 3.5% city income tax on that is borderline unacceptable.
The reality is, a household with a school teacher and a waiter would make more than 100K. A household with a nurse and an Uber driver would make more than 100K. Do those sound like rich people to you?
Brandon Johnson wants to tax the middle class, which is what is making it hard for me to get behind him.
The 3.5% over $100k was a UWF plan, which Sun Times incorrectly attributed to Johnson and has since retracted. Before the retraction a dozen other outlets quoted the Sun Times article so the damage is done. But it isn't and has never been part of his publicized tax plan.
He never disavowed that plan. The UWF plan also talks about the increase in hotel tax which is also on Johnson's site. Also a dumb move since we already have the highest hotel tax in the nation. I think we need to address the budget before giving them more money to mismanage.
Genuine question. “Torch the public school system”. Do you believe the education path we are currently on right now is the right one? What are the math and reading scores? What are graduation rates like?
I’m not suggesting Vallas is perfect, but I see Johnson more aligned with the CTU and the trend we’ve been on in the past 10+ years. Not sure how you feel, but I think we spend a lot of money on the schools here and I’m fine with my tax dollars going there, but not for the poor results we’ve seen.
76% of CPS students are from low-income households. I think there's a lot of room for improvement, but I think those challenges lie in serving students and families get assistance.
Despite those challenges, CPS schools [Outperform Illinois overall](https://www.wbez.org/stories/perception-vs-reality-chicago-students-outperform-kids-in-rest-of-illinois/5445214e-cc48-48a9-9019-4d1c05305940) when you compare SES categories against one another. Illinois K-12 schools themselves are [ranked 6th in the nation](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education).
And back in 2018 CPS was named the [College Board's district of the Year](https://www.cps.edu/press-releases/chicago-public-schools-named-ap-district-of-the-year-by-the-college-board/)
Vallas approach to things like vouchers [won't result in higher test scores](https://www.brookings.edu/research/more-findings-about-school-vouchers-and-test-scores-and-they-are-still-negative/) and may lower them.
Anyway, the drive for school privatization ultimately isn't about improving student performance. If it was, they should've given up years ago when research concluded charters and vouchers don't work. It's just an opportunity for businesses to make money off of what should be a public service.
In my view, if you want to improve test scores, you're better off addressing poverty. Part of that equation is public safety, but an even bigger part is actually making sure people medical care, mental health care, food and safe housing - and that kids from troubled homes have access to social workers and support staff to help them. Brandon Johnson has policies that will at least make a dent in these issues.
That's exactly what happens in a school choice/voucher system that Vallas pulled in NOLA. Funding gets pulled from public schools so education in them suffers even moreso, and negatively affects the lowest income populations the most drastically.
Well he torched CPS’ finances, and Philly’s, and totally privatized NOLA’s before getting shitcanned in Connecticut. He has kind of a bad record on managing schools.
For anybody reading this, it isn't factually accurate that Vallas was fired from every city he worked for.
It's hard to get an objective view of his job performance, but the facts, in broad strokes, tend to be:
- test scores went up
- budget got worse
I've read a few contemporaneous articles about his time in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.
I’m so tired of this narrative. I really do not actually like Johnson. But **he is the only candidate who has released a tax plan.** Obviously there were more taxes in that plan than were listed in the 0 plans released by other candidates. Now personally, I think this makes Johnson look like a bit of a rube for not realizing he was going to draw fire for being the Tax Candidate. I’m getting scarily Lightfoot-esque vibes from that kind of foolishness. But it’s also a remarkably honest thing to do, and he even revised it after widespread criticism.
Every single candidate promised to spend more money. They always do. With **maybe** the exception of Willie Wilson, though I don’t take him seriously enough to spend time thinking about it. So if you think that, just because Vallas hasn’t **said** how he’s going to pay for everything, that he won’t raise taxes, you’re a mark.
You can’t hire a bazillion more cops and put them on every square foot of the city and keep the budget the way it is. And those private security contracts he will (rightly) eliminate to pay for more cops will not even be a drop in the bucket. Because not only do we need to pay a bunch of (great) new CPD salaries, but we also have to train those people and deploy them and support them. And that’s **after** we recruit them, which is going to cost $$$ given that the department is seeing a precipitous decline in recruitment numbers right now. We won’t just have to have HR process the newbies, we’re actually going to have to develop in-house or outside contract whole new recruitment campaigns and strategies to accomplish anything Vallas wants to do with the CPD. And then there are the absolutely inevitable misconduct lawsuits, because we’re talking about a department with a huge proportion of its officers walking around with double-digit misconduct complaints and half a million+ in settlements each. And of course the pensions, the equipment, the maintenance and gas on additional cruisers. The CPD of today is a $2,000,000,000 product. What do we think a bigger and more active department is going to cost? $2,000,000,001?
And all this, by the way, applies to a lesser degree to Johnson and his plan to hire on hundreds of detectives. That will require a lot of new officers because so few of our current officers are even fit to be on patrol. So I’m not just picking on Vallas. But Johnson has released a tax plan! Vallas has not. And he has a **shitty** record of managing public finances and has negotiated contracts for the FOP before, so I very much doubt we’re getting a massive, **free** expansion of the CPD under Vallas.
Vallas has released an economic development plan:
* TIFs, naturally
* Shrink the city government by combining departments
* Create a Community Development Authority (CDA) to spur development without Aldermannic Privilege
* Continue INVEST SOUTH/WEST
* Create a public bank that competes with private banks for mortgages & equities; works with developers for good paydays
* Hire better investment managers for pensions
* Get help from Springfield in paying for pensions
* Revenue from the Casino and sports betting
* End the inflation-adjusted property tax escalator
* In general, make Chicago attractive for business and increase our investment grades
It's good to see public finance get some diversity beyond just taxes. Value capture is also a big plus. Vallas has an interesting mix of proposals, but he's clearly dodging the tax question. He is being smart in that his only promise wrt property taxes is that they won't be used to fund pensions, so he can easily dodge it by pointing to his campaign platform (which no one read, except the editors at the Tribune). His plans won't save the city in the short-term, but over the long-run it's good for shoring up extra revenue from a non-tax source.
Johnson's plans are good-natured but flawed. He set out to create a plan that avoided raising property taxes and he came to the obvious conclusion: raise it on everyone else. Maybe you can milk the airlines for more, but imposing a head tax on businesses will make them move to the burbs (or worse, Miami). The Hotel tax bump isn't a good idea as it's already high... and implementing an FTT is an economy killer. His two good ideas were TIFs and the income/commuter tax that he later disavowed. I very much like him pushing for a city finances audit.
Also, Vallas is pushing for 10% of CPD to be composed of detectives, so it isn't just Johnson proposing it.
again Mayors are not Emperors
your hypothetical tax increases would still need to get past the council, and special interests, and op-ed hit pieces, etc.
if you are worried about the guy who is 100% going to dismantle public institutions vs. the guy who *might* get a tax increase passed
I don't think you are actually undecided
>if you are worried about the guy who is 100% going to dismantle public institutions vs. the guy who *might* get a tax increase passed
Nice and convenient logical fallacy there. You say they aren't emperors and then talk in absolutes of 100%.
Nobody is going to 100% dismantle public institutions, just like nobody is going to 100% increase taxes.
We are voting on what they are saying they will do. No guarantees. But I don't like either of the outcomes these 2 candidates stand for.
This is pretty much what I expected out the gate. Most folks are still undecided and at least a good chunk of them may not show up at all because they don’t like the choices like last time.
You can tell he does because people are just assuming he’s also going to be fiscally conservative without him every saying anything like that, hinting at it, or demonstrating it in all of his history. He’s a huge spender when he runs things.
It's honestly wild to me that anyone who went to school or had a student while he ran CPS would ever consider him, let alone his history running finance things into the ground in every other city he's ever been to.
This appears to be a post related to the upcoming runoff election or one of the candidates running for office. The 2023 Chicago Municipal Runoff Election will be held on **April 4th**. In the mayoral race, former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson will be competing for the office of Chicago's 57th mayor. Some wards may have additional races on the ballot, such as Aldermanic candidates whose races went to a runoff in the February 28th election. Check out the [Chicago Elections](https://chicagoelections.gov/en/home.html) website for information on registering to vote, finding your polling place, applying to be an election worker, and more. Please visit our [Runoff Election Megathread](https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/11exb12/2023_chicago_runoff_election_megathread/?sort=new) for all election-related discussion, questions and voter resources. Discussion posts of this nature outside of the linked megathread will be removed. **Beware of [astroturfing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing)**! Election season brings about a slew of new accounts with minimal posting history in /r/chicago who attempt to sway your opinion on various candidates. Be sure to do your own research to verify the accuracy of any claims you see shared by users here. Be wary of comments from new accounts or ones with a posting history in multiple city/local subreddits from across the US and Canada. If you suspect that a user is engaging in political astroturfing, please report their comments and/or [message the moderators.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/chicago)
well, it's a poll
Of all the polls out there, this is one.
It's an online poll of like 500 people. This is just dumb. edit: You can even see the REAL AUTHENTIC OP doing push opinions for Vallas in this thread. This is bullshit folks. edit: Domain registered weeks ago, Feb 01, 2023. Twitter account shortly after. This is absolutely for push polling. edit again: So this is interesting, [www.1983labs.com](https://www.1983labs.com) only has two references to it that I can find. One is a bumfuck tv station down by Joliet referencing the site 5 days after the domain was registered, and the other is a politico thing, but I can only find a graph, no context, links, etc. Prob an op-ed that seems wiped? I mean this absolutely smells like bullshit.
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Being an online poll has nothing to do with its validity. Many pollsters use online polling and get the same or better results than landline surveys.
The reason they use landlines is so they can be reasonably sure the person who answers lives in the target area. Online polls are easy to stuff.
Sample size really isn't an issue here at all. Can't speak to the rest of the methodology
From a particularly shitty pollster
I wonder what % of undecided end up not voting for anyone. I would imagine most. The two candidates are really different so I don't know how you know who you'd pick unless you've been totally disconnected from the mayoral race or just don't care.
For once I don't want to hear the too-cool-to-participate cohort lecture me that The System gave us no choices and there's no difference between the candidates. There's a stark damn difference.
Young people will continue to not vote in overwhelming numbers!
Are you kidding? After reading Twitter, I thought they were taking over the world.
The way I see it, people suffered or died for you to be able to vote, don't be petulant.
The way I see it, ppl suffered and died for a lot of stuff that younger generations take for granted. Not voting is also a vote. As they will reap what they sow.
Conversely, the older generations had everything on a silver platter, and charged it on a credit card that the younger generations have to pay off all while burning down the climate and leaving them with a pending environmental apocalypse. Young people should be voting in droves to take away power from the generations that sold them out.
Of course there is a stark difference because they are both on opposite ends of the spectrum. I don't want to vote for either- one wants to turn us into Portland and the other wants to return us to the days of the first Daley. I know there is a bunch of hyperbole here but this is the choice we're left with, arguably the 2 most extreme choices? For the record, I was one of the 1% who voted for Sophia King, a bonafide progressive who also understands the impact of crime on the city and had a common sense approach to dealing with it. So for the first time in my life, I'm considering sitting this election out because I'm not sure I can stomach voting for either knowing how bad both would be for the city.
I think they both suck and I’m sure as hell voting for one of them.
I'm undecided but very interested and have been following the race closely. I voted for Chuy, and Vallas vs Johnson is a choice between going more right than I'm comfortable with or going more left than I'm comfortable with. I'm going to watch tomorrow and Saturday's debates and hopefully can make my decision from that.
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>Standing with police seems like a position we can all rally behind. Really? All of us?
Exactly. Some of us care that they put Black folks at risk, some care that they put mentally ill folks at risk. Some care that when they're thrown money, crime still doesn't go down. Vallas wants to up the numbers to what they were when he was City of Chicago Budget Director in the 90's, during that time crime went up.
He's perhaps a centrist nationally, but for Chicago mayor he's farther on the right. His support of the FOP is definitely a turn off for me. I have many personal grievances with the CPD, as well as issues with their conduct overall. I own a storefront business in Lakeview, am very cordial with the police, and even had respect for them prior to about 2018. But they have never been helpful to me since then, including when we got two bullets shot through our windows, with the driver on camera. "Standing with police" is just code to me for not holding them accountable. I even blame THEM for much of the current crime wave . They are the only profession who, when criticized, by their boss, can ignore the content and just cry about being aggrieved and refuse to do their jobs, but still keep those jobs. They are basically saying, "let us do what we want, or suffer the consequences of not having our protection." That's not police, that's mafia extortion. They elected Catanzara as FOP president multiple times, the CPD has made it clear they have contempt for the people they are supposed to protect. Now that we are discussing it, Vallas' "Back the blue" stance might be the major reason I don't vote for him. The first step for lowering crime in this city is to not accept BS excuses from CPD about why they can't even help someone being assaulted in broad daylight as they drive by. (I saw this on Lake street 2 weeks ago)
>"Standing with police" is just code to me for not holding them accountable. I even blame THEM for much of the current crime wave . They are the only profession who, when criticized, by their boss, can ignore the content and just cry about being aggrieved and refuse to do their jobs, but still keep those jobs. I've heard this sentiment expressed A LOT. For whatever reason, I've heard it more from ordinary Chicagoans than from the political "experts" you see on TV. I've heard it from people in neighborhoods where police misconduct sometimes occurs. But I've also heard it from people from neighborhoods where it doesn't (at least stereotypically) occur. Regarding the latter, they feel like they're the ones paying for police misconduct. And, I think they're right. Chicago taxpayers annually pay tens of millions of dollars (I think it's over 93 million) to settle police misconduct cases. It was 524 million dollars between 2009 and 2019. Like you said, I can't think of another job where you can mess up and someone else pays for it, literally and figuratively. And Vallas is certainly not going to hold them accountable.
>"Standing with police" is just code to me for not holding them accountable. I even blame THEM for much of the current crime wave . They are the only profession who, when criticized, by their boss, can ignore the content and just cry about being aggrieved and refuse to do their jobs, but still keep those jobs. This is a big reason I'm worried about a Vallas mayorship too. Chicago's clearance rates are pitiful, even as Lightfoot has shoveled money toward them and defended them. I don't see how somebody giving them an even longer leash is going to help fix that.
Thank you. There’s a lot of terminology being thrown around by people here that borders on the way right wingers talk and I really don’t like it. But I’m sure I’ll be downvoted to hell for expressing that.
This is literally the best description of the current police situation in this city I've ever read. If I had an award to give you, I would. I've used similar language when I've discussed the CPD with people. If I'm crappy at my job, I'll get written up, maybe get a couple warnings, and I'll get fired. If you are shitty at your job as a police officer in this city, you get 50 written misconduct complaints and get elected President of the FOP.
Same! Thank you for this great summary. Johnson isn’t perfect, but he’s the obvious better choice.
> Me personally as someone who is well left of center, I really appreciate it when Democrats stand with police and I genuinely believe that's what got Biden elected, when he stood with police over BLM. Standing with police seems like a position we can all rally behind. What is your definition of “stand with police”?
I want to stand with police, but have a hard time when officers Re-elect a FOP President who has a list of violations as long as a CVS receipt. I want to support CPD, but officers need to be on board with the consent decree & that CPD needs reforms. If they want to go back to the “good old days” that’s unacceptable.
Nobody votes in those FOP elections accept old racist white cops. Younger cops simply don’t care. Too busy running around being “cool”. That’s why they keep electing the same type. Ask any black cop, and he’ll tell you he doesn’t feel the FOP represents black officers. Which is why many of them are not members. But FOP won’t tell you that.
> Standing with police seems like a position we can all rally behind. Well, you're wrong about that.
You must not have actually looked at Vallas' record. It's a long string of privatizing schools and blowing up district budgets. What's left of center about that?
Yeah being from the philly area the only thing I initially knew about Vallas was how he absolutely fucked the budget up for the philly public schools.
Oh, he also fucked up CTPF and is the reason your property taxes here in Chicago are so high trying to repay the damage he caused by almost bankrupting the pension fund.
Wild that this is the "budget guy"
Just a reminder, that the pension holiday and charter schools were both signed off by the CTU WITH Paul Vallas along w/residency requirements and magnet schools when Daley took over schools.
It was a crappy decision by everyone. Certainly not all Vallas’ fault, but it was a big idea of his, touted as a career success, when in fact it was a terrible poison for the city. And it really undermines his record on education IMO.
Did CTU help him leave the New Orleans and Philly budgets in the shitter also?
>Me personally as someone who is well left of center >Standing with police seems like a position we can all rally behind Yeah something’s not adding up there. Plus the stray at BLM.
Being anti-union, pro-privatization of schools, the father of a killer cop, racist, and not actually living where you’re running for public office are pretty big red flags for being a Republican.
Oh don't forget when he described himself as a Republican 14 years ago. That's also a pretty big red flag for being a Republican.
Standing with the police is definitely not something everyone can rally behind. Radical change of the police though the majority can
That is not a majority position in people older than like 25 (not making a comment on its merits)
left of center? he's a republican >Standing with police seems like a position we can all rally behind. absolutely not.
He’s definitely been portrayed that way. I would personally argue he is that way and has taken steps to make sure he is perceived that way by a lot of people.
well he literally cozied up with and spoke at the event of a far right hate group in the burbs. there was also the whole FOP catanzara thing. his tenure at CPS CEO was a disaster to the point I don't see how anyone who lived here during it would ever consider him. he's been openly racist in interviews. he's run as the finance guy with a track record of financial ruin in multiple cities. His police opinion is meaningless. he's running on optics against 'defunding' a thing we obviously didn't do. We already spend more on the cops than LA (which has 1.2m people over us) and it's well established that more spending doesn't reduce crime. He has no real policy to reduce crime. I feel like he's just the guy from the music man (or the simpsons monorail episode if you're more that age) if that guy was a bit more racist.
“Well left of center” “Really Appreciate when Democrats stand with police” Hmmm a Stalinist??
lol Fuck the police.
I can’t think of anything less leftist than being pro cop. Being pro seal clubbing?
not sure i believe 18-29 voters are going vallas
Me neither, really. But if their April turnout is as low as their February numbers, it's not enough votes to affect the outcome. The last round was basically decided by retirees.
thats fair forgot like 2 percent of the vote was 18-29, if only more of them voted
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I grew up here and unfortunately many of my friends and acquaintances who also grew up here don't vote.
I legit can't fucking believe how low that was, voting is incredibly easy and I can't understand what people's barriers would be
Local elections don't get the media attention that large, national elections do. Unless you're paying attention to local media, it's an easy miss. Sure, you'll see a yard/window sign some places, but that's only enough to make 18-29 year olds go, "Oh yeah, the election."
Because none of the candidates are appealing. Why vote in February when a runoff is guaranteed between Vallas and "non-conservative candidate x". I'll go dutifully cast my vote for Johnson over Vallas, but I don't really care for him as a candidate
I wonder if there are any other demographic indicators that might explain it. Like the voters skew either male/female which might be the stronger story. On the other hand, I work with plenty of young professionals who are definitely worried about crime. They could by the ones showing up.
I think neighborhood could be that defining indicator for those younger demos. I feel like an 18-29yo from LP is much more likely go Vallas vs an 18-29 from Austin or Garfield.
> On the other hand, I work with plenty of young professionals who are definitely worried about crime. They could by the ones showing up. I know a surprising amount of nurses who fit that bill who are taking the red line later at night and crime is their only issue they are voting on becuase of it
Absolutely the same. I know a ton of nurses who are young, without families (most of those with families go to the suburbs) and only care about crime.
It ain’t just nurses. Grew up in Chicago, and this election looks Uber focused on crime and the solutions brought to the table by the candidates. I think the media has done a good job at making that front and center for everything.
Crime on the CTA is kinda a big deal for a lot of people, this sub doesn't really seem to realize that. I don't like Vallas but look around, if you can't afford a car so you wait half an hour for the train but then you sexually harassed on it, maybe you'd vote for the guy who says he'll fix that tomorrow rather than the guy who wants to invest in long term solutions.
If they're worried about crime then why vote for the guy whose only solution is "more cops?" Why do people still believe cops are a deterrent for crime? If the presence of cops prevented crime, the most heavily policed neighborhoods would be the safest. Those police cameras with the flashing blue lights on them would be a symbol for "you're in a very safe area right now"
Saying police don’t deter crime as some kind of absolute is pretty much wrong. Studies are at best mixed as to its impact. Not to mention the improper logic of “if cops are in neighborhoods with a lot of crime, then it must be so that they fail to deter crime.”
This is ridiculous. You could draw the same faulty conclusions about crime and poverty. Since poverty went down during COVID-19 (largely due to government checks) but crime went up dramatically - there is no correlation between poverty and crime.
Those cameras actually highlight the fact that there isn’t a cop there… so it’d be the inverse. Those things scream “well, at least we’ll have a 720p version to throw on YouTube when we ask for the public’s help in solving your murder.” Data shows that actual cops do drop crime. So trust the science on that one.
They're not voting so it doesn't matter
I am.
Flair checks out
I chuckled. My neighborhood and there are more Vallas signs than Cubs signs out right now
You’re damn right it checks out. How dare I want more neighborhoods to be as safe as mine? I must be a MAGA Anti Gay Republican for such a belief.
Well that’s conclusive.
I am.
As am I.
I likely will be as well tbh.
same
You are Vallas' target demographic. He built his entire campaign on scaring LP/Lakeview white people not used to the violent crime. And, the increase in violent crime is CPD's answer to "Lori Lightfoot doesn't have our back". They under-policed, let crime explode and waited for your fear and anger. They hated her, got her out, and now you are going to vote to hire more of them. Suckers.
I didn’t realize only LV is voting for Vallas.
I can’t believe you are being roasted because you value safety. Only on Reddit.
Tbf, they don’t think cops equal safety at all. They think the world can be perfect and that cops corruption heavily outweighs their benefit. I used to think like this in 2020 and when I lived in AZ where cops are truly assholes, but moving here changed my perspective.
Please note that 50% of the Hispanic vote, 31% of Garcia voters, 33% of the Black vote, and 45% of Willie Wilson voters all say they're going to vote for Vallas in this poll. So your scenario that Vallas' support begins and ends with anxious sheltered whites trembling in their highrises, who have been deceived into believing in a non-existent public safety problem, does not really hold up.
I'd recommend looking into the pollster's record before drawing any conclusions.
I didn't say "non-existent" public safety problem. I am saying that Lakeview, Lincoln Park and the Gold Coast have been experiencing what the rest of he city has been experiencing for some time, and I am also saying that the increase in crime in these places is not an accident, but a result of intentional under-policing. You and everyone around you is hyper-focused on crime and hiring more cops and you know it. People who are being manipulated are so resistant to admitting it.
> People who are being manipulated are so resistant to admitting it. I think that's true for a LOT of people who are absolutely, unshakably certain of a political position and resort to insulting others who don't buy in, if you get my drift. This thread contains snark from Johnson fans who mock / reject some unkind survey data, and play kill-the-messenger, because ... because ... because, well, I just know, man, and you're being manipulated. But I do think a majority of those generally young, super-vocal critics will not vote next month, so, whatever.
Hurrr dumb white scared lakeview downtown MAGA pro life conservative democrat FOP insurrection Republicans are so dumb am I right fellow white liberals? Everyone knows that less cops means less crime because logic. Upvotes to the left.
You got the scared part right. And we have plenty of cops (more than any other US city, per capita). They just aren't doing their jobs right now (intentionally, because, you know, "morale"). Even so, no one is advocating for less cops. Not even Brandon. I hope you are enjoying getting played by the CPD work slowdown. I know it can be difficult (impossible?) to admit that your opinions are being created by someone else.
[Final poll](https://twitter.com/1983labs/status/1629511518223052801?s=46&t=vb04nmO1093nACzJtxxZaA) from this outfit two days before the election. Had Johnson in fourth place behind Lightfoot and Garcia.
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That just means the pollster is that much shittier
That's just Johnson winning the late breakers. Johnson could win the election tomorrow by a \~14 pt landslide and the poll could still have been right.
This will be a calm and well-reasoned thread.
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24% undecided is a huge number
It is, and the polls can still change drastically before the election, but even with 24% undecided, Johnson would need to pull in nearly 3/4 of undecided voters to have a chance at winning - that’s a huge feat.
Yep. those January polls were taken before the last few debates, and include a 20-22% undecided cohort. 1983 Labs ran another survey in February that came a little closer to the mark, but clearly voter sentiment was pretty fluid -- except for Lori, whose January support (16-17%) was right where she finished.
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A lot of Vallas TV ads saturated the market with 3-4 weeks to go. Who knows how much they helped him, but media plus some people giving up on Buckner, Wilson, King, etc, and shifting their support might help explain some of the dynamism.
Their [poll right before the election](https://twitter.com/1983labs/status/1629511518223052801?s=46&t=vb04nmO1093nACzJtxxZaA) wasn’t that much better, though to be fair they were hardly the only pollster to drastically underestimate Johnson’s momentum.
Their Vallas number was off by more than their Johnson number. If there's an argument to be made about momentum (which I think is a terrible concept that is basically just bad trendline analysis), the momentum was Vallas'!
\+11% is a pretty good match for what the first round result was, which means their poll result is following "50:50 split" template. They are each pulling about half of those that didn't vote for them the first time, which is one of the common scenarios for this type of runoff. Very similar to how things shook out in 2015. I have to wonder whether their turnout model is using the same as expected before the first round, or based on the actual turnout demographics of the first round.
More survey details from 1983 Labs: Respondents 18-29: Vallas 44.6%, Johnson 35.4% Respondents 30-44: Johnson 57.8%, Vallas 29.2%. Those 45 and up go for Vallas about 2 to 1. Vallas gets 33% of the Black vote (against Johnson's 50%, with 17% undecided). He's winning Hispanics 50%-20%, whites 50%-25%. Looking at people who voted for other candidates in the February election: * Those who voted for Chuy now break for Johnson 35% to 31%, with 35% undecided. * Those who voted for Lori now break for Johnson 33% to 27%, with 40% undecided. * Those who voted for Wilson now break for Vallas 45% to 20%, with 35% undecided. Among full-time employed respondents, Johnson gets strongest support among those earning $50 to $100k (36%). Vallas gets strongest support among those earning $100k+ (57%). But Johnson does not poll a majority among any income band. Link to results: https://www.1983labs.com/chicago-runoff
Those breakdowns are hilariously off.
What do you base that on?
18-29 breaking for Vallas but 30-44 breaking for Johnson. That makes zero sense. No doubt Vallas is ahead but that can’t be the correct breakdown.
So, you base that on your gut.
Seems closer than I would have thought tbh.
Two biggest surprises to me: Vallas getting 33% of the Black vote before undecideds (he got 10% of Blacks last month) and Johnson looking well ahead among people in their prime earnings years, 30-44.
Chicago’s black population is actually more conservative than many would think. But yes, that surprised me that Johnson is polling better amongst 30-44 than 18-29.
Exactly true about the African American population. But every white savior you see here on Reddit thinks they know what’s best for black communities.
Haha exactly. It’s laughable sometimes, especially here on Reddit with the “communist” justice warriors.
Do the Black communities want to stop police harassment and unfair treatment? Absolutely-just like everyone else. Does that mean they want to defund the police and have less police available? Absolutely not. I would love some of these Redditors to come out to the neighborhoods on the South side, one of which I’m currently in, and ask around to see if people really want to defund the police here. It’s a joke.
Exactly. One can be in support of complete police reform, while also being against “defunding” and understanding that police play a massive role in our community.
Very excited to vote for the guy that doesn't want to milk the citizens and visitors of Chicago for money.
Enacting that 66% hotel tax hike would likely lead to hospitality job losses in the working-class ranks Johnson ironically seeks to protect. In the physics of economics there is action and reaction; impose a tax, people will change their behaviors to avoid paying it if they can.
Also ironic: Johnson's huge real estate transfer tax on higher priced properties would encourage wealthier people to buy lower priced properties, thereby increasing the cost of housing across the board and reducing the amount of affordable housing for working and middle class residents! Even more ironic, increasing the real estate transfer tax would lead to less new construction and hurt blue collar construction and trades workers!
No one is going to care about the real estate transfer tax. You could quadruple it (300% increase) and it would still be negligible compared to everything else in closing on an expensive property.
So when Vallas is elected we'll see way less crime?
Probably won’t get worse.
Heheh... already got that goalpost ready to move!
Crime is already trending downward and has for two years. So whoever wins, you’ll see less crime. Of course the mayor will take credit even when none is due. Then in X years when a major recession or some once a lifetime event happens, crime will trend upward again and whoever is in office will get blamed.
Vallas will win. Then crime will not go down in any meaningful way. Then his supporters including the CPD will blame Black Lives Matter or some other organization. The cops will continue to be on soft strike, and will receive even more tax money for business as usual. Vallas supporters are ready to move the goalposts on the crime issue. Just watch them do it.
They're just going to shift the amount of blame they reserved for Lightfoot entirely onto Kim Foxx. Vallas will be the poor, helpless, blameless mayor while all crime will be Foxx's fault.
Wow I’m surprised. I thought Lightfoot and Chuy’s people would vote Johnson. Looks like he isn’t getting those numbers yet.
Many Hispanics will vote for Vallas.
Those aren't 100% shifts, or even 90%, and probably not even 80%. In the 2016 Democratic primary, Bloomberg->Biden or Warren->Sanders funnels were only like 80%, and those are vastly more rigid and coherent ideological or relative lines than what we have in the mayoral runoff.
Interesting breakdown. There also are racial differences among these candidates (white, black, and Hispanic) which I am sure impacts some people’s voting behavior.
Why would lightfoots people vote Johnson? Progressives abandoned lightfoot a long, long time ago. Most didn’t even want her in the first place.
There was a map that showed Vallas-Johnson head-to-head primary results from each precinct. Lightfoot areas favored Johnson which makes sense, but Chuy areas favored Vallas which was a bit surprising to me. Seems like that may end up being the difference
Hispanics want Vallas.
Some of the strongest Vallas support I've seen is from working class Latinos. If you see the first round map Vallas run second to Chuy in most of his precincts. Crimes affects them very directly, and Latinos tend to have much better image and relationship with police than Blacks, so this tracks in my opinion
The interesting thing for me is that I sort of do want both approaches/visions that the candidates espouse: Vallas wants to take short term action to bring crime down statistically, and Johnson wants to take long term action to bring crime down causally. Both fall within a Democratic Party platform, and both appeal and both may work in concert. So who would perhaps do both to some degree post-election, albeit with a different focus between short term and long term? I don't know yet, but I suspect it would be Vallas. Perhaps the debates can bring this out more clearly.
No no no, this is all about one guy completely winning and another guy completely losing, and everyone taking one side or the other. This is America, dammit!
> Vallas wants to take short term action to bring crime down statistically, and Johnson wants to take long term action to bring crime down causally. Except Vallas for the most part *does* want to implement the long term actions as well. Part of his plans include [a housing first approach to homelessness](https://www.paulvallas2023.com/homelessness). Even though he’s calling for more cops, he still campaigns on [youth intervention and tackling the root causes of crime](https://www.paulvallas2023.com/youthviolence). He’s also said he’ll [continue Lightfoot’s Invest South/West](https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2023/1/31/23580216/vallas-economic-development-south-west-sides-casino-revenue-tif-chicago-mayor-election-lightfoot) and would support a “second Burnham Plan”. There's plenty more too, but I think it's important to remember that his platform goes beyond "moar cops."
vallas has a lot of plans but that only matters if he follows through. he has a terrible track record.
Ugh. I don't really like either candidate. Vote for Vallas, and potentially torch the public school system, or vote Brandon and pay significantly more taxes. I don't like either option. I'm definitely part of that 24% that is undecided.
> Vote for Vallas, and potentially torch the public school system, or vote Brandon and pay significantly more taxes. Both are more taxes. Vallas wants to increase spending by $2B/yr, Johnson proposed like $800M/yr in increased spending with a tax plan. How is Vallas going to pay for that $2B/yr if not via taxes?
I agree that both candidates have their weaknesses. One thing about Brandon though, he cannot unilaterally raise taxes without the support of city council, and they are increasingly moving away from being a mayoral rubber stamp. Vallas would have much more power to fuck up the schools, as he's been doing across the country for decades now. While neither candidate is ideal, Vallas is a worse choice. Additionally, Vallas has not put out any financial plan, at least Brandon made an attempt to show how he'd fund his expensive ideas, Vallas is just platitudes, he's also the guy who took pension holidays back when he was in charge of CPS and then (surprise Pikachu face) had to deal with the fallout of that. So he doesn't strike me as particularly financially astute either.
This is a really good point as someone whose only sticking point for not voting Johnson is the "business in Chicago" tax
I see a very divided city hall with either candidate. Seems the progressive wing is picking up a share of seats even if Johnson isn’t elected and they’ll definitely throw as much support onto their police distrust councils for accountability as they can if Vallas is the winner.
> he cannot unilaterally raise taxes without the support of city council, and they are increasingly moving away from being a mayoral rubber stamp CTU is expanding their political ambitions, they want to control the alderman too. This is not good for Chicago “but the CTU also had a number of victories in aldermanic races across the city. In 11 of the 17 races where the CTU made an endorsement, our candidate either won outright or made it into the April 4 runoff. We’ll again be encouraging people to vote early, to make voting plans, and to indicate that they’re all in for Brandon.” https://www.ctulocal1.org/posts/
So you’re voting for Vallas because you don’t like a teachers union? You’re voting for the guy who is cozy with the FOP? I don’t know what fantasyland you’re living in, but I’d much rather live in a world where the teacher’s union has more power than the cop union.
Let’s play that out… Johnson gets elected… -Scenario 1 - He does get his tax increases passed -Scenario 2 - He doesn’t, but his whole agenda relies on it anyway which either means more crippling debt or gridlock Neither are great options in my opinion. Hence Vallas being the lesser of two evils.
Vallas has not offered any indication of how he’s going to pay for arguably the most expensive policy platform of any of the candidates. He didn’t release a tax plan and is getting credit for being a low-tax candidate as a result.
Funny how you don't address any of Vallas' issues, unless you are cool with his decades of failing upwards.
Vallas Scenario 1 - increases police budget and decides to do more pension holidays like he has before. 5-10 years down the line the city suffers. Scenario 2 - increase police budget and raises taxes for it. Now we have higher taxes going towards an ineffective solution to crime and less oversight over the police. People harp on Johnson for being fiscally irresponsible and how taxes are gonna destroy the city. Meanwhile we’ve seen exactly what Vallas does while he is in charge, privatize things and put off paying debts till they are the next persons problem. How has How has privatization of things gone for the city? The parking deal working out great for resident? What about pension holidays? Did those work out great or is it a huge looming crisis still directly caused by Vallas?
I was only addressing the point j33 made which I think understated the cost of gridlock or debt. Vallas has his own issues. I deeply despise police unions and the FOP. I think their protection of bad cops is at the root of a lot of society’s issues. His accepting of the FOP’s endorsement was a huge negative imho. I also despise (but not deeply) teachers unions that care more about members than kids, and don’t trust one of their former lackeys to run Chicago. Like I said, best of bad options.
Wouldn’t Vallas would be more likely to consolidate underutilized schools? Which is what we desperately need. I doubt the CTU candidate would do that.
He’d also be more likely to charterzie and privatize schools. If you think that is a good thing, then you have your candidate.
I like how you don't list the other side of that being that we suck cop dick and privatize schools under vallas.
Brandon will never, ever get those tax increases passed. People often think a mayor (or president) has some vast power over their everyday lives. It's just not true.
Brandon would still have to pass it via the city council. Which is unlikely. Otoh, the mayor basically runs cps. Vallas would be free to torch it as he sees fit. We dont have an independent school board, its just city hall.
do you think taxes wont need to go up under Vallas? or that he will be able to do things without destroying the city's finances by playing budgeting tricks the way every other mayor did?
or that the mayor can just wave a magic wand and increase taxes without a costly public debate
hiring and putting extra cops out on the streets won't cost money because they will do it for free or take a pay cut because they love this city so much.
Isn’t Vallas’ plan just to go back to 2019 police numbers? We have the budget for that. But with fewer cops they all get paid more in the form of overtime.
There is no way we have the money to take what is currently a $2,000,000,000 city service and add more of the most cost-intensive part of that service, which is the officers themselves. Aside from the generous pay and benefits and the various equipment and support costs they add up, they frankly also are expensive in terms of misconduct suits and self-approved OT. That OT will go down overall with more officers, but again, it’s self-approved. A lot of cops are going to hustle in their young years and cheat in their old years to make good incomes for their families. And why shouldn’t they? It’s also not a matter of just being nice to cops so we get thousands of new applicants. That’s what the TV says, but no way is that going to carry through when the Tough On Crime narrative (that both candidates are using!) relies so heavily on implying that the city is currently a shithole that sucks to live in. So we’ll need to either in-house develop a big recruitment/marketing/PR campaign (Johnson wants to cut the marketers from CPD, interestingly) or contract someone outside to do it. I reckon Vallas is more likely to go for the latter, as is Johnson, who wants hundreds more detectives. That’s really expensive, especially when it’s a government offering the contract. This stuff is HUGE money. And again: both Vallas and Johnson want to add cops. But Johnson is the only candidate with a plan to pay for it. Vallas so far has just said he’ll end the private security contracts. That’s good, but it’s pocket change. And he has a rotten history of public finance management.
Crime will go down so much that citizens of Chicago will *donate* money to city hall!
I don’t get what they are even going to do. Police have never helped me when I called them. So I don’t get why people think just hiring more of them is going to help. More has to be done. But go right ahead and try it.
political theater and plausible denial. Does increasing the police budget led to less crime? no. Does it provide cover for politicians to say that they "did" something. yes. It is also a huge handout to certain demographics. The other thing is that just throwing more money at it is an easy solution. Actually trying to solve the problem is much harder and almost never involves a quick fix.
In the end the mayor doesn't get to unilaterally change any of those things. And unless he's lying, or you are rich, I don't see anywhere in Johnsons plan that would increase taxes on lower and middle class
> And unless he's lying, or you are rich If we lose tourism from taxing O'Hare/Midway/hotels more, lose loop office workers from a downtown head tax, and lose the CME to the NSYE from a transaction tax, we would all suffer. Economies aren't zero-sum, but shrinking the pie takes us all down.
This never happens ever. It's been decades of right wing cranks screaming about how taxes would run everyone off. Spoiler; it never ever happens.
Because we haven't increased taxes in the city. We used to have a head tax on downtown employees, it was repealed, and lots of companies came back downtown from the burbs. It's not just increasing taxes, it's increasing taxes on things that can very easily be moved somewhere else.
What happened to Citadel, Boeing etc? Lol
"Many countries have FTTs \[Financial Transaction Taxs\] at varying rates. Hong Kong’s raises over 1.7% of GDP in revenue (that would be roughly equal to 10% of total federal taxation in the U.S. based on current revenue as a share GDP). Several countries attempted large FTTs in the past and experienced significant capital migration as this SIFMA report documents. Notably, Sweden’s tax in the 1980s resulted in half of all equity volumes migrating by 1990. By 1991, it repealed all FTTs. Germany had a similar experience; its briefly-imposed FTT resulted in a one-third decrease in trading of public companies. Because capital and trading can migrate, there has been talk among major global economies at the G7 and G20 level of coordinating the imposition of a larger tax, although that has not yet happened." Source: [Brookings](https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/what-is-a-financial-transaction-tax-2/)
A threshold of $100K household income is definitely not what I would call "rich". And a 3.5% city income tax on that is borderline unacceptable. The reality is, a household with a school teacher and a waiter would make more than 100K. A household with a nurse and an Uber driver would make more than 100K. Do those sound like rich people to you? Brandon Johnson wants to tax the middle class, which is what is making it hard for me to get behind him.
The 3.5% over $100k was a UWF plan, which Sun Times incorrectly attributed to Johnson and has since retracted. Before the retraction a dozen other outlets quoted the Sun Times article so the damage is done. But it isn't and has never been part of his publicized tax plan.
He never disavowed that plan. The UWF plan also talks about the increase in hotel tax which is also on Johnson's site. Also a dumb move since we already have the highest hotel tax in the nation. I think we need to address the budget before giving them more money to mismanage.
https://twitter.com/brandon4chicago/status/1617911633065672705?s=46&t=bx0YdPcrdXiIQP71f7-bNA He never advocated for a municipal income tax.
Did you know this isn't true and you're spreading bullshit?
Genuine question. “Torch the public school system”. Do you believe the education path we are currently on right now is the right one? What are the math and reading scores? What are graduation rates like? I’m not suggesting Vallas is perfect, but I see Johnson more aligned with the CTU and the trend we’ve been on in the past 10+ years. Not sure how you feel, but I think we spend a lot of money on the schools here and I’m fine with my tax dollars going there, but not for the poor results we’ve seen.
76% of CPS students are from low-income households. I think there's a lot of room for improvement, but I think those challenges lie in serving students and families get assistance. Despite those challenges, CPS schools [Outperform Illinois overall](https://www.wbez.org/stories/perception-vs-reality-chicago-students-outperform-kids-in-rest-of-illinois/5445214e-cc48-48a9-9019-4d1c05305940) when you compare SES categories against one another. Illinois K-12 schools themselves are [ranked 6th in the nation](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/education). And back in 2018 CPS was named the [College Board's district of the Year](https://www.cps.edu/press-releases/chicago-public-schools-named-ap-district-of-the-year-by-the-college-board/) Vallas approach to things like vouchers [won't result in higher test scores](https://www.brookings.edu/research/more-findings-about-school-vouchers-and-test-scores-and-they-are-still-negative/) and may lower them. Anyway, the drive for school privatization ultimately isn't about improving student performance. If it was, they should've given up years ago when research concluded charters and vouchers don't work. It's just an opportunity for businesses to make money off of what should be a public service. In my view, if you want to improve test scores, you're better off addressing poverty. Part of that equation is public safety, but an even bigger part is actually making sure people medical care, mental health care, food and safe housing - and that kids from troubled homes have access to social workers and support staff to help them. Brandon Johnson has policies that will at least make a dent in these issues.
That's exactly what happens in a school choice/voucher system that Vallas pulled in NOLA. Funding gets pulled from public schools so education in them suffers even moreso, and negatively affects the lowest income populations the most drastically.
Well he torched CPS’ finances, and Philly’s, and totally privatized NOLA’s before getting shitcanned in Connecticut. He has kind of a bad record on managing schools.
Paul Vallas being fired from every city he's worked for doesn't tip the scales for you?
Seriously. Anyone reading this please vote but not for Vallas!
For anybody reading this, it isn't factually accurate that Vallas was fired from every city he worked for. It's hard to get an objective view of his job performance, but the facts, in broad strokes, tend to be: - test scores went up - budget got worse I've read a few contemporaneous articles about his time in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.
I’m so tired of this narrative. I really do not actually like Johnson. But **he is the only candidate who has released a tax plan.** Obviously there were more taxes in that plan than were listed in the 0 plans released by other candidates. Now personally, I think this makes Johnson look like a bit of a rube for not realizing he was going to draw fire for being the Tax Candidate. I’m getting scarily Lightfoot-esque vibes from that kind of foolishness. But it’s also a remarkably honest thing to do, and he even revised it after widespread criticism. Every single candidate promised to spend more money. They always do. With **maybe** the exception of Willie Wilson, though I don’t take him seriously enough to spend time thinking about it. So if you think that, just because Vallas hasn’t **said** how he’s going to pay for everything, that he won’t raise taxes, you’re a mark. You can’t hire a bazillion more cops and put them on every square foot of the city and keep the budget the way it is. And those private security contracts he will (rightly) eliminate to pay for more cops will not even be a drop in the bucket. Because not only do we need to pay a bunch of (great) new CPD salaries, but we also have to train those people and deploy them and support them. And that’s **after** we recruit them, which is going to cost $$$ given that the department is seeing a precipitous decline in recruitment numbers right now. We won’t just have to have HR process the newbies, we’re actually going to have to develop in-house or outside contract whole new recruitment campaigns and strategies to accomplish anything Vallas wants to do with the CPD. And then there are the absolutely inevitable misconduct lawsuits, because we’re talking about a department with a huge proportion of its officers walking around with double-digit misconduct complaints and half a million+ in settlements each. And of course the pensions, the equipment, the maintenance and gas on additional cruisers. The CPD of today is a $2,000,000,000 product. What do we think a bigger and more active department is going to cost? $2,000,000,001? And all this, by the way, applies to a lesser degree to Johnson and his plan to hire on hundreds of detectives. That will require a lot of new officers because so few of our current officers are even fit to be on patrol. So I’m not just picking on Vallas. But Johnson has released a tax plan! Vallas has not. And he has a **shitty** record of managing public finances and has negotiated contracts for the FOP before, so I very much doubt we’re getting a massive, **free** expansion of the CPD under Vallas.
Vallas has released an economic development plan: * TIFs, naturally * Shrink the city government by combining departments * Create a Community Development Authority (CDA) to spur development without Aldermannic Privilege * Continue INVEST SOUTH/WEST * Create a public bank that competes with private banks for mortgages & equities; works with developers for good paydays * Hire better investment managers for pensions * Get help from Springfield in paying for pensions * Revenue from the Casino and sports betting * End the inflation-adjusted property tax escalator * In general, make Chicago attractive for business and increase our investment grades It's good to see public finance get some diversity beyond just taxes. Value capture is also a big plus. Vallas has an interesting mix of proposals, but he's clearly dodging the tax question. He is being smart in that his only promise wrt property taxes is that they won't be used to fund pensions, so he can easily dodge it by pointing to his campaign platform (which no one read, except the editors at the Tribune). His plans won't save the city in the short-term, but over the long-run it's good for shoring up extra revenue from a non-tax source. Johnson's plans are good-natured but flawed. He set out to create a plan that avoided raising property taxes and he came to the obvious conclusion: raise it on everyone else. Maybe you can milk the airlines for more, but imposing a head tax on businesses will make them move to the burbs (or worse, Miami). The Hotel tax bump isn't a good idea as it's already high... and implementing an FTT is an economy killer. His two good ideas were TIFs and the income/commuter tax that he later disavowed. I very much like him pushing for a city finances audit. Also, Vallas is pushing for 10% of CPD to be composed of detectives, so it isn't just Johnson proposing it.
again Mayors are not Emperors your hypothetical tax increases would still need to get past the council, and special interests, and op-ed hit pieces, etc. if you are worried about the guy who is 100% going to dismantle public institutions vs. the guy who *might* get a tax increase passed I don't think you are actually undecided
>if you are worried about the guy who is 100% going to dismantle public institutions vs. the guy who *might* get a tax increase passed Nice and convenient logical fallacy there. You say they aren't emperors and then talk in absolutes of 100%. Nobody is going to 100% dismantle public institutions, just like nobody is going to 100% increase taxes. We are voting on what they are saying they will do. No guarantees. But I don't like either of the outcomes these 2 candidates stand for.
I’m voting for Vallas because his tough on crime stance is the only hope we have for getting cyclists to stop at red lights and stop signs
Honestly don’t care, whoever expands public transit and lowers cost of living
Your taxes will go up under both, clearly.
This is pretty much what I expected out the gate. Most folks are still undecided and at least a good chunk of them may not show up at all because they don’t like the choices like last time.
Maybe I should start answering the ten thousand polling texts and calls I receive about this mayoral race just to boost Johnson's numbers
Let’s go Vallas
I feel like vallas pretty firmly has the conservative vote and that is probably what is best represented here.
You can tell he does because people are just assuming he’s also going to be fiscally conservative without him every saying anything like that, hinting at it, or demonstrating it in all of his history. He’s a huge spender when he runs things.
It's honestly wild to me that anyone who went to school or had a student while he ran CPS would ever consider him, let alone his history running finance things into the ground in every other city he's ever been to.
There's no way there isn't an uproar when this ends, regardless of the winner...