Far-left candidate Brandon Johnson, a self-professed “progressive,” has won the runoff election for Chicago mayor after focusing his campaign on defunding the police and raising the city’s taxes.
The people of Chicago are self-destructive morons who want their communities to collapse. They want to live amidst crime and filth. There's not much we can do about that except to let them suffer the way they apparently want to suffer. https://t.co/rnCjXq2CLf
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) April 5, 2023
Chicago’s current mayor, Democrat Lori Lightfoot, lost in the last round of elections — coming in third place to Johnson and moderate Democrat Paul Vallas.
BREAKING NEWS🚨LORI LIGHTFOOT OUT IN CHICAGO as Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Loses Re-Election bid.. pic.twitter.com/euqZAldTW7
— Matt Couch (@RealMattCouch) March 1, 2023
In the final round, Vallas initially led Johnson for most of the night. Johnson began taking the lead around 8 p.m., eventually winning by a small margin.
Breitbart News notes: “The election came down to the wire with more than 500,000 Chicagoans casting their ballot for mayor, but in the end, Johnson was able to maintain his slight lead, although the counting will continue as absentee and mail-in votes are counted after Election Night.”
Most outlets had already called the mayor’s race by 9 p.m. Central on Tuesday evening.
BREAKING: Brandon Johnson is projected to win the Chicago mayor's race, defeating a billionaire-funded conservative in an upset victory.
Johnson is a public school teacher and labor organizer and ran as a voice of working people. pic.twitter.com/LpOIOwpDcu
— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) April 5, 2023
Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools chief, ran as a business-friendly, law-and-order candidate. Meanwhile, Johnson — who is Black — ran a smear campaign by trying to label his opponent as a racist who is “really a Republican.”
While Chicago’s skyrocketing crime was a top issue during the runoff, Johnson tried to “run away from the debate on the campaign trail,” Breitbart News noted.
Leftist @Brandon4Chicago has won the Chicago mayoral election against moderate Democrat Paul Vallas. Johnson calls for removing law enforcement from society. During the 2020 riots, he defended looters, saying they were lashing out against racism. Chicago’s violent crime has… pic.twitter.com/Z2kcJSj8GJ
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) April 5, 2023
It is clear why Johnson tried to avoid discussing the crime crisis — as he had a part in exacerbating the problem. While serving as a Cook County Commissioner during the 2020 George Floyd riots, Johnson introduced a resolution to “redirect funds from policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement.”
The resolution, titled “Justice for Black Lives,” passed overwhelmingly in July 2020.
While outgoing Mayor Lightfoot was a clear supporter of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and had even celebrated the George Floyd riots, Johnson attacked her for opposing defunding the police — insisting that “she’s on the wrong side of history… And the other side of the building has to come to their own reckoning.”
“This will give the county commissioners a road map for taking millions of waste spent on incarceration and policing and reinvesting it,” he added.
Johnson isn’t just a passive supporter of the “Defund The Police” movement like many other Democrats, he has actually gone far beyond that.
“I don’t look at it as a slogan. It’s an actual real political goal,” the radical leftist said during a 2021 appearance on WCPT 820′s “The Santita Jackson Show.”
Johnson has also spoken out in favor of huge tax hikes in Chicago, despite the fact that the city already has some of the highest taxes in the United States.
