Chicago mayoral race spotlights cities’ post-pandemic struggles

At campaign events across Chicago’s South and West sides, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s supporters all drive home the same point: Don’t judge her on the past four years. Think, instead, about what she could do in the next four. 

“You can’t change nothing in four years,” says local Alderman Emma Mitts to a cheering crowd in West Garfield Park, an area with the city’s highest homicide rate. “In a pandemic? Even being a sister?”

It’s an atypical message for an incumbent politician – but then, nothing was typical about Mayor Lightfoot’s first term. Less than one year after the former president of the Police Board triumphantly took office as Chicago’s first Black female mayor and becoming one of America’s most prominent LGBTQ leaders, COVID-19 brought life in her city to a screeching halt.