--- title: Lightfoot's Embarrassing Loss Holds Lessons for Democrats description: The Chicago Mayor carried each of the city’s 50 wards four years ago. On Tuesday, she couldn't even get enough votes to make a runoff. canonical: https://time.com/6259485/lori-lightfoot-loss-chicago-lessons-democrats/ author: Philip Elliott article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-03-01T20:39:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-11T20:47:29.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Lightfoot's Resounding Loss Holds Lessons for Democrats og:description: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot carried all the city’s 50 wards four years ago. On Tuesday, she couldn't even make a runoff og:url: https://time.com/6259485/lori-lightfoot-loss-chicago-lessons-democrats/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f3251b69a95e0c3/698a3ac4cabb1dc1c6e512f8/GettyImages-1470071907.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Incumbent Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Campaigns One Day Ahead Of Election og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lightfoot's Resounding Loss Holds Lessons for Democrats twitter:description: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot carried all the city’s 50 wards four years ago. On Tuesday, she couldn't even make a runoff twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f3251b69a95e0c3/698a3ac4cabb1dc1c6e512f8/GettyImages-1470071907.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Lori Lightfoot's Resounding Loss in Chicago Holds Lessons for Democrats Everywhere > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. Brief goes beyond the Washington headlines to explain the politics, personalities and power dynamics shaping what happens next. 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Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Updated: Dec 11, 2023 8:47 PM UTCPublished: Mar 1, 2023 8:39 PM UTC  Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks to reporters before campaigning in the Uptown neighborhood on February 27, 2023. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks to reporters before campaigning in the Uptown neighborhood on February 27, 2023.Scott Olson—Getty Images  by [Philip Elliott](https://time.com/author/philip-elliott/)  ## Philip Elliott Senior Correspondent Updated: Dec 11, 2023 8:47 PM UTCPublished: Mar 1, 2023 8:39 PM UTC _This article is part of The D.C. Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up_ [_here_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite) _to get stories like this sent to your inbox._ Seismic shifts in politics sometimes aren’t appreciated in real time. The urgent often overtakes the important; deadlines to avoid government shutdowns, for instance, crowd out significant but quiet shifts in public sentiment on topics like [abortion](https://19thnews.org/2022/09/abortion-opinion-changing-after-roe-v-wade/), [marriage](https://www.axios.com/2022/11/30/senate-house-same-sex-marriage-supreme-court), and [immigration](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/republican-views-on-immigration-are-shifting-even-further-to-the-right-under-biden/). As a result, headlines can sometimes catch audiences by surprise, giving them a jolt and sparking the all-too-common question from the Trump Era: _Did that just happen?_ Well, one of those spasms [manifested](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/28/us/chicago-mayoral-election-lightfoot-vallas.html) Tuesday night on the shores of Lake Michigan, as Chicago voters for the first time since 1989 [denied](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/28/chicago-mayoral-election-runoff/) an incumbent mayor re-election. Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a 60-year-old former federal prosecutor who became the first Black woman and the first openly gay person to lead America’s third-biggest city, failed to advance to an April 4 runoff after carrying each of the city’s 50 wards just four years ago. While Lightfoot entered Election Day as something of an underdog, the extent of her loss was striking. In a city known for its political leaders’ longevity and the machine’s ability to defend its own cogs, the hiccup showed that Lightfoot had misread this fraught moment, failing to grasp that even the weary voters of deep-blue Chicago will put up with persistent upticks in crime for so long, and that the realities of a pandemic and racial justice protests have clashed with the city’s self-image. The result: Lightfoot closed out Tuesday in a distant third place. Paul Vallas, a former public schools chief, and Brandon Johnson, a county board commissioner, will vie to [replace](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/01/us/paul-vallas-chicago-mayor-election.html) her. Even Lightfoot’s biggest defenders will concede her lone term has not been without unique challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic threw mayors of cities great and small for loops. Teachers’ unions rightly had [questions](https://www.wsj.com/articles/chicago-teachers-union-stuck-on-extending-school-year-amid-tentative-deal-11572535451) about their personal safety, as well as the wisdom and limits of virtual classrooms. The upheaval that rocked small towns and metropolises alike about policing practices and racial justice opened very necessary conversations in Chicago. Meanwhile, a vaccine [mandate](https://www.wsj.com/articles/chicago-mayor-files-for-injunction-against-police-union-over-vaccine-mandate-11634311400) for those policing the city cleaved her from the support of her city’s public safety teams. And a crime wave that never seemed to go to low tide [prompted](https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-chicago-wealthy-neighborhoods-hire-their-own-private-police-as-crime-rises-11651237201) Lightfoot’s administration to test a tactic usually reserved for fantasy novels or comic book-based movies: she literally [raised](https://www.propublica.org/article/draft-bridges) the bridges to quarantine parts of the city from its neighbors. Homicide [rates](https://www.chicagobusiness.com/crains-forum-safer-chicago/chicago-violence-problem-debate-safety-inequality) were like those of the 1990s, but the politics were not. On top of that, Lightfoot’s tough negotiating [style](https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoots-legacy-and-loss/80ae61ee-870b-4209-b1dc-4bcf61a8508a)—the one that gave her credibility as a corruption-busting outsider—left her with fewer allies than she realized. Several of her nominal pals on City Council ended up [endorsing](https://www.wsj.com/articles/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoot-faces-tough-re-election-bid-11673823875) her opponents, and prompted the city’s polar opposite police unions and teacher unions alike to separately decide it was time to test what Chicago looks like in a post-Lightfoot era. (The police union backed Vallas, and the teachers got behind Johnson) The isolated Lightfoot seemed more in danger by the day, with conservative media personalities [using](https://www.thedailybeast.com/mtg-sean-hannity-dance-on-lori-lightfoots-political-grave) her as a reliable punching bag. Perhaps Lightfoot’s bigger power is that of reminder. It has long been taken as an article of faith that Chicago is a Democratic stronghold, the place where John F. Kennedy is [alleged](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/18/books/review/campaign-of-the-century-kennedy-nixon-1960-irwin-f-gellman.html) to have stuffed ballot boxes to win the White House in 1960\. Once in office, mayors there are expected to be set for long and steady tenures: Richard J. Daley was in office for 21 years; his son, Richard M. Daley, served for 22 years. Even Rahm Emanuel, whom no one will [accuse](https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/john-kass/ct-met-rahm-emanuel-dead-fish-0125-story.html) of being deferential, [powered](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/rahm-emanuel-elected-chicago-mayor-defeats-jesus-chuy-garcia-n337576) through a 2015 re-election primary against a progressive darling without too much of a headache. Crime, however, became too much a [drag](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/how-mayor-lori-lightfoot-lost-chicago.html) on Lightfoot, and she had too few friends to help her power through. Lightfoot will, of course, be fine. The days of Daley-style political dynasties in Chicago are probably more mythology than strategy these days, but Lightfoot’s [legacy](https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-mayor-lori-lightfoots-legacy-and-loss/80ae61ee-870b-4209-b1dc-4bcf61a8508a) is one that will be debated in poli sci seminars, leadership retreats, and post-mortem reports for years. Her wins will be muted by her Tuesday-night loss, but there will always be a well-funded think tank or fundraising machine that can use Lightfoot’s biography and sharp elbows. Still, in 2023, with so much of the last four years still as unsettled canon in future history books, Lightfoot may serve as a hint that—just maybe—we haven’t yet fully appreciated the historic moment we just lived through. Retrospection and reflection are valuable, but almost always find their way to the list of things to be handled tomorrow. As politicians in Washington and elsewhere consider their own fates, they’d do well to consider the warnings incumbent with Lightfoot: what had long been assumed to be a safe run turned perilous and then temporary in short order. Engaging in fights—and winning, in some cases—with powerful unions is seldom a winning strategy for Democratic leaders, but it proved riskier than expected. And crime, and how it is perceived, may have far more power than strategists have come to respect. The public noticed, and it acted. The original version of this story misstated which unions supported Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson in the Chicago mayoral election. The Chicago Teachers Union supported Johnson, not Vallas, and the Chicago police union supported Vallas, not Johnson. _Correction: Due to an editing error, the original version of this story misstated which unions supported Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson in the Chicago mayoral election. The Chicago Teachers Union supported Johnson, not Vallas, and the Chicago police union supported Vallas, not Johnson._ _Make sense of what matters in Washington._ [_Sign up for the D.C. Brief newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/signup?nln=dc-brief&source=dc%5Fonsite)_._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6259485/lori-lightfoot-loss-chicago-lessons-democrats/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6259485/lori-lightfoot-loss-chicago-lessons-democrats/"},"headline":"Lori Lightfoot's Resounding Loss in Chicago Holds Lessons for Democrats Everywhere","datePublished":"2023-03-01T20:39:30.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-11T20:47:29.000Z","description":"The Chicago Mayor carried each of the city’s 50 wards just four years ago. On Tuesday, she couldn't even get enough votes to make a runoff.","url":"https://time.com/6259485/lori-lightfoot-loss-chicago-lessons-democrats/","keywords":["The D.C. 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