Brandon Johnson, a radical leftist and self-described “progressive,” has been reported as the winner of Chicago’s mayoral election.
NBC News noted that Johnson’s opponent, Paul Vallas, is a former CEO of the Chicago Public Schools who pledged to increase funding for police in order to address the city’s ongoing crime issue. The outlet also noted that Johnson has made statements expressing support for cutting funding to police departments. He also reportedly hopes to raise taxes on the city’s residents.
Throughout the campaign, Johnson suggested on more than one occasion that skin color and racism were huge factors in his race against Vallas. He criticized Vallas last week for supposedly “being dismissive of a black man who taught for four years in Chicago Public Schools,” and similarly stressed that election race boils down to “black labor versus white wealth.”
A leftist group called More Perfect Union published a video to Twitter yesterday in support of Johnson, blasting Vallas as a “conservative mayor” despite his belonging to the Democrat Party.
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
Johnson’s campaign reportedly referred to Vallas as a racist who is “really a Republican.”
Many outlets declared Johnson as Chicago’s next mayor by 9 p.m. Central on Tuesday evening.
I've seen enough: Brandon Johnson defeats Paul Vallas in the Chicago mayoral runoff.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) April 5, 2023
The Chicago Tribune reported that following the death of George Floyd in 2020, then-Cook County Commissioner Johnson put forth a resolution aiming to “redirect funds from policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement.” The proposal, titled “Justice for Black Lives,” was approved in July 2020.
Johnson has decried the now-defeated leftist Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, asserting she is “on the wrong side of history. … And the other side of the building has to come to their own reckoning.”
In 2021, the projected winner of the mayoral election reportedly joined WCPT 820′s The Santita Jackson Show, proclaiming that defunding the police is more than just a slogan.
“I don’t look at it as a slogan. It’s an actual real political goal.”
Chicago has been one of the nation’s top leaders in having an overall net loss of residents under the watch of Lori Lightfoot.
