Coming Up: NBC 5 is hosting a Chicago Mayoral Forum with all nine mayoral candidates on Feb. 13. Here's how to watch.
The Chicago mayor's race would end in a three-way tie if the election happened today, an independent poll commissioned by Telemundo Chicago, NBC 5, the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ shows, with no clear path for Mayor Lori Lightfoot to win in a runoff election.
Results from the poll, released Wednesday, showed Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, Paul Vallas and Lightfoot finishing closely together, likely forcing a runoff. According to the opinions of 625 registered Chicago voters interviewed between Jan. 31 and Feb. 3, Garcia would receive 20% of the overall vote, Vallas would receive 18% and Lightfoot would receive 17%.
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Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy, Inc., which conducted the poll, determined the potential margin for error of the results to be no more than plus or minus 4 percentage points. That puts Willie Wilson, who the poll determined would receive 12% of the vote, and Brandon Johnson, who would receive 11% of the vote, into potential contention as well.
An additional contender in the virtual tie is the undecided voter. According to the poll's findings, 18% of those interviewed said they were currently undecided when asked which candidate would get their vote.
Fast-forward to a potential runoff, and according to poll results, Lightfoot would come in second when paired with Vallas (35% of the vote to his 48%) or Garcia (30% of the vote to his 54%).
When interviewees were asked whether they approved or disapproved Lightfoot's job performance as mayor, the message was strong: 61% said they disapproved of her performance. When Lightfoot was elected mayor in 2019, she won in each of the city's 50 wards during the runoff election.
In a runoff scenario between Garcia and Vallas, Garcia comes out on top, 47% to 36%, according to poll results. In a scenario between Brandon Johnson and Vallas, it's too close to call with Johnson at 39% and Vallas at 38%, and between Vallas and Wilson, Vallas gets the vote 43% to 36%.
In further runoff scenarios that matched up Garcia against both Johnson and Wilson, Garcia wins each race.
The pool of registered voters included in the poll were interviewed by Mason-Dixon by phone. Of those interviewed, 46% were male and 53% were female. In addition, 36% identified as White/Caucasian, 30% Black/African American, 27% Hispanic/Latino and 3% Asian. The remaining group either refused to identify or chose "other."
The age breakdown of interviewees included the following groups: 18-34 (15%), 35-49 (28%), 50-64 (30%) and 65+ 164 (26%). Four people, or 1%, refused to identify their age.
Chicago's mayoral election takes place on Tuesday, Feb. 28. A runoff election is slated for Tuesday, April 4.
