Chicago Mayor Lightfoot might not make the runoff

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Mayor Lori Lightfoot urged Black residents to support her campaign for reelection or risk losing the seat and told people who don’t support her not to vote in a vivid display of the city’s racial politics during appearances Saturday on the South and West sides.

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But with less than two weeks to the Feb. 28 election, the firecracker Democratic first-term mayor — who quickly brandished a national hate-hate relationship with conservatives — faces credible threats from at least three opponents in the nine-person race. Her unfavorables have soared with Chicagoans fed up with gun violence. In recent polling, she's failed to break into the top two.

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Paul Vallas, a former CEO of Chicago Public Schools who has won the backing of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, and Garcia, who has high name identification and who, in 2015, forced then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel into a runoff. Garcia lost but went on to get elected to Congress.

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Now Lightfoot is taking the battle to yet another candidate showing signs of surging: Brandon Johnson, a county commissioner who has the endorsement of the politically powerful Chicago Teachers Union, which has long been at odds with Lightfoot.

At a candidate forum last week, Lightfoot focused her attacks on Johnson, who has not led in polling in the way Garcia and Vallas have. It appeared to be an acknowledgment that she was battling with a surging candidate who ultimately could crowd her out from advancing to the next round.

“I take it as a sign of desperation,” Johnson said of Lightfoot’s attacks.

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