A Match Up No One Saw Coming: Lightfoot Vs. Preckwinkle
CHICAGO (CBS) - It's the matchup no one saw coming: Toni Preckwinkle versus Lori Lightfoot to determine who will be Chicago's next mayor.
CBS 2 political reporter Derrick Blakley takes a closer look at where the votes came from, and what that means for the April election.
As both surprising finalist Lori Lightfoot and tough survivor Toni Preckwinkle greeted voters at CTA stations Wednesday morning, their camps studied the election results for clues as to the roadmap ahead.
The ward breakdown somewhat surprising: Lightfoot won 11 wards. Preckwinkle won just five. But businessman Willie Wilson won more than any candidate: 14 wards. They were all clustered on the South and West sides.
Which means much of the black vote is up for grabs, with Wilson's endorsement a valuable commodity.
"I called everybody last night. I wanted to make sure that I reached out. We'll be having conversations with other candidates in the coming days," Lightfoot said.
Wilson acknowledged his influence by saying, "both Lori Lightfoot and Toni Preckwinkle have called me personally and I have agreed to meet with both."
Preckwinkle won wards concentrated along the south lakefront and the South Side, while Lightfoot was strongest on the north lakefront and North Side.
Take for example the 40th Ward, controlled by Ald. Pat O'Connor, the city council's second-longest serving alderman. Lightfoot won it outright, 3,734 votes to Preckwinkle's 2,133.
Or the 47th Ward, which Lightfoot won with 5,615 votes, compared to Preckwinkle's 2,821.
"People feel like the city's going in the wrong direction and they want somebody who's a credible leader who's going to stand for integrity in government and lead us in a completely different way," Lightfoot said.
Meantime, Preckwinkle stressed her experience: 27 years as an alderman, eight years running Cook County.
"I have been a progressive my whole life and I've taken those progressive credentials wherever I've gone," Preckwinkle said.
You'll be hearing a lot about that in coming weeks: Which mayoral candidate is the real progressive? And which has the ability to run the city?
One more point from a data scan: it's clear Jerry Joyce was the major factor in knocking Bill Daley out of the runoff. Joyce racked up 7,500 votes in his home base, the 19th Ward, and that beat Daley by a margin of four to one.
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