How Minority Communities Decided the Chicago Mayoral Election
This week, the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform teamed up with Scott Kennedy of Illinois Election Data to release an analysis of the 2015 Chicago Mayoral Election. In case you missed it, here is a synopsis of our report:
Going into Chicago’s historic Runoff Election earlier this month, incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel led runoff challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia by roughly 58,000 votes. The challenge for Garcia leading up to the April Runoff Election was to gain voters who previously supported candidates not advancing to the Runoff and to expand the overall electorate by registering new Garcia supporters. By implementing both of these strategies, the Garcia campaign hoped to close the gap between incumbent and challenger.
Photo Courtesy of the Chicago Tribune
Garcia needed to execute a multifaceted approach for attracting voters in order to win. His strategy included consolidating support within his base, winning over constituents who voted for Wilson, Fioretti, or Walls, and gaining undecided voters who may have been disillusioned with the incumbent. He focused on a narrative of a divided city, with the gap between rich and poor widening, leaving certain communities lacking city services and development strategies.
Using census and election precinct data, we were able to construct a quantitative analysis of the election results based on income and race. We found that approximately half of precincts had median incomes below $60,000, while the other half had median incomes above $60,000.
Garcia set out to win the election by focusing on what he and many others consider the “Forgotten Chicago,” citizens with incomes under $60,000 per year. While he did receive a great deal of support from Hispanic majority areas – a vast majority of which have median incomes below $60,000 – he was unable to secure victory over Emanuel in African American voters, White voters, and communities with incomes above $60,000.
Part of Emanuel’s success can be attributed to the attention he gave to minority communities throughout his campaign. Photo courtesy of the Chicago Tribune
As expected, Emanuel won 63 percent of voters living in areas with median household incomes greater than $60,000. In order to win the runoff election, Garcia would need to win the overall vote of citizens with a median household income of less than $60,000 by more than 63 percent.
Not only did Garcia fail to acquire more than 63 percent of this subset, Emanuel actually came close to winning it with a majority, with Garcia and Emanuel securing 50.57 percent and 49.44 percent respectively of this group. Garcia did have a strong voter base in the Hispanic community, receiving just over 66 percent of votes in Hispanic majority precincts. Emanuel, on the other hand, received the majority of votes in White, African American, and Mixed-race precincts receiving 66, 57, and 53 percent of the votes respectively. While its clear that Garcia had the backing of Hispanic voters, he was unable to win over the needed percentages in other demographic groups.
As we now know, Garcia was unable to gain the majority in the April election, losing by 12 percent. In many instances, the Garcia campaign was able to successfully execute their runoff strategy, but not at the intensity they needed to turn the election. Still, the reality of the two disparate groups of Chicagoans remains, and the Garcia campaign was able to bring these issues to the forefront of the conversation.This in itself is a small but important victory.
For more analysis on the Chicago Mayoral Election, check out our condensed report or full report authored by Scott Kennedy of Illinois Election Data, or watch our forum entitled “Chicago Politics in Transition” in its entirety, taped by CAN TV.
Back