Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) has attributed her loss in Tuesday’s election in part to racial and gender-based discrimination.
www.breitbart.com
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) has attributed her loss in Tuesday’s election in part to racial and gender-based discrimination.
News One
reported that after conceding Chicago’s mayoral election on Tuesday, Lightfoot was asked if she believed her race and gender had contributed to her loss.
“I’m a Black woman in America,” she replied. “Of course.”
Lightfoot has expressed versions of this sentiment since the beginning of her campaign.
NPR
noted that when Lightfoot announced she would be seeking reelection back in June, she told supporters, “I’m a Black woman in America. People are betting against us every single day.”
Lightfoot
told the
New Yorker in a late February interview that she believed her race and gender contributed to her being “portrayed in the media” as an ineffective mayor.
“And, look, also, I am a Black woman—let’s not forget,” she told the publication. “Certain folks, frankly, don’t support us in leadership roles.”
Lightfoot has only 17.1 percent of votes against Paul Vallas’s 33.8 percent share and Brandon Johnson’s 20.3 percent, the
New York Times election dashboard
indicates. With only six percent of the vote outstanding, it is possible to project that Lightfoot will fail to advance to the runoff election.
As Breitbart News
noted Tuesday night, Lightfoot is the first Chicago mayor to lose a reelection bid in four decades.
The
Chicago Sun-Times noted Lightfoot’s loss came at a time when “violent crime and the perception of it [are] foremost on the minds of voters.”
Chicago Police statistics
show reports of serious crimes increased by 41 percent from the previous year in 2022.
ABC 7 Chicago
noted in 2022 that Chicago’s murder rate per capita was four times higher than New York City’s.
Meanwhile, citing data from the Office of the Inspector General, CWB Chicago
reported the Chicago Police Department had shrunk by more than 1,500 officers between Lightfoot’s inauguration in 2019 and 2023.
However, even as recently as January, Lightfoot expressed optimism about her approach to crime issues.
“When it comes to addressing crime in our city, I’ve got a plan — and it’s working,” she
wrote in a tweet.
When it comes to addressing crime in our city, I’ve got a plan — and it’s working. I won’t quit until we’re the safest big city in America.
pic.twitter.com/SKQBlDw1iI
— Lori Lightfoot (@LoriLightfoot)
January 10, 2023
At a March 2022 symposium on “Mental Health, Substance Use, and Violence Prevention,” Lightfoot described violence as “a symptom of poverty,” CBS News
reported.
“And if we want lasting peace in our city, we’ve got to address those root causes,” she added.
Lightfoot told the
New Yorker in February, “The traditional strategy of law enforcement first and only, with nothing else, it does not work.”
