With nine candidates on the ballot in the race for the next mayor of Chicago, a runoff election seems likely. But first, voters will need to make a critical decision as uncertainty floods the race even just days before Election Day.
Voters are tasked with choosing who out of the crowded field will end up at the top - whether that be for a future runoff or to become the next mayor of the city.
The nine candidates include: Ja’Mal Green, Ald. Sophia King, State Rep. Kam Buckner, Willie Wilson, Brandon Johnson, Paul Vallas, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Ald. Roderick Sawyer and Rep. Jesús ‘Chuy’ García.
If no candidate gets the required 50% majority of the vote, a runoff election will follow with the top two vote-getters.
But who might those two candidates be?
Election Day could be too close to call
The outcome of Feb. 28 remains far from certain, with results potentially so close that voters won't know the final two contenders for a potential runoff for weeks.
That’s because of how tightly-packed the contenders are in polls leading up to next week’s election.
“It might take some time after election night to call some of these races, even the mayor’s race,” Max Bever of the Chicago Board of Elections told NBC Chicago.
Election attorney Burt Odelson agrees.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter.
“It’s very, very possible that we could have discovery recounts to see who comes in second, to see who is entitled to run on April 4,” he says.
Several factors could be at play, with the first being how closely-contested the race has become. There are a good number of candidates who have paths into the top-two spots in voting, which would then qualify them for the April 4 head-to-head runoff in the race.
What’s more, mail-in ballots, which are far outpacing any previous mayoral election in Chicago, could be key. Those ballots can be submitted until midnight on Election Day, and so long as they are postmarked by Feb. 28, they can be counted as long as they are received by March 14.
Under Chicago election law, mail-in ballots can be counted if they are received by March 14, and as a result, some candidates may petition for a recount of votes if they are close enough to believe that they still may qualify for the April 4 runoff when all is said and done.
Results in the election are due to be certified by March 21, and if a candidate finishes within 5% of the top-two spots in the race, then they would be legally allowed to request a recount, according to election experts.
That condensed timeframe would not only mean that Chicago voters may not know who will be on their ballots for the runoff until just weeks prior to the vote, but also would mean that candidates wouldn’t have much time to fundraise, run advertisements and push for votes in that limited turnaround time.
History is on the line
Mayor Lori Lightfoot secured her spot in history when she became the first out and Black female leader of Chicago.
While Lightfoot has consistently remained among the top contenders in the packed group when it comes to recent polling, her bid for reelection is faced with much uncertainty.
Now, with the mayor of the third-largest U.S. city facing the possibility of an early reelection defeat, the results of Feb. 28 could be historic once again, but this time in a very different way.
Should she fail to make it into the top two slots, Lightfoot would not only be the first Chicago mayor in decades to lose a run for reelection, but she would be the first Chicago mayor seeking reelection to fail to make it to a runoff.
Though the runoff system was introduced in 1999, the first-ever runoff election didn't actually happen until 2015, when incumbent Rahm Emanuel and Jesus Chuy García advanced to a second round. Emanuel went on to win the runoff election that year.
"I feel very good about where we are," Lightfoot said earlier this week. "I feel very confident about the outcome. But I take nothing for granted and we've got to make sure that people turn up and vote. I'm not gonna leave anything to chance. We're running hard everywhere, doing our work to make sure that we are reaching voters, encouraging them to express themselves by going to the polls and voting."
But her race hasn't been without controversy.
Lightfoot most recently found herself on the defensive after she suggested at a campaign rally that the city’s Black residents should either vote for her, or not vote at all in the upcoming municipal election.
“Any vote coming out of the South Side for somebody not named Lightfoot is a vote for Chuy García or Paul Vallas,” the mayor said. “If you want them controlling your faith and your destiny, then stay home. Then don’t vote.”
García called the comments “disqualifying.”
“This is disqualifying rhetoric for anyone hoping to lead a Chicago that is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic city,” he said. “We need unity, not division.”
Willie Wilson says that the comments were divisive, and that Chicagoans deserve a candidate that will seek to unite the population.
“Mayor Lightfoot’s comments are delusional, divisive, dangerous and disappointing,” Wilson said in a statement. “Our city deserves a mayor that does not use race to divide us. We have been divided for too long. The mayor should be encouraging all people to go out and vote!”
Following the criticism, Lightfoot said she misspoke.
"It's important that people vote. I'm very concerned about the lack of participation, not just in this election, but you can see, really, for the last few years - people are not as engaged," Lightfoot said during an unrelated press conference this week. "And to me, what is the most powerful tool in our democracy, which is the right to vote, and we've got to do everything we can to encourage people to participate in our system. If you don't vote, in my view, you're giving your power away to someone else. So what I say is vote, vote, vote."
Lightfoot isn’t the only frontrunner feeling the heat a week before Election Day.
Controversies have also swirled around other candidates in the race, with residency questions, endorsement criticisms and ties to political machines all being scrutinized.
Paul Vallas, the former Chicago Public Schools CEO who has found himself firmly entrenched among the highest-polling candidates in the race, is also under intense scrutiny after the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, a group that endorsed him in the race, welcomed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to Illinois for a speech this week.
Vallas dismissed the criticisms, saying that he is focused on Chicago issues.
“DeSantis is a diversion. I’m going to continue to focus on the issues,” he said. “I’m not paying attention to DeSantis or DeSantis supporters. The city is at a crossroads. We have a leadership crisis.”
The surge of mail-in voting
Mail-in balloting has become an enormous part of the 2023 election cycle, with more than 73,000 ballots having already been returned by voters. That far out-paces the 49,652 mail-in ballots that were cast in the entire 2019 election, according to CBOE data.
Just over 209,000 voters requested mail-in ballots for this election, meaning that more than 130,000 ballots remain outstanding, with more potentially being requested in the days ahead.
Tuesday also marked an interesting milestone in the election, as more than 132,000 ballots have already been returned through the mail and at early-voting sites. That number now exceeds the entire total of early votes cast in the 2019 race, officials said.
What that signals for Election Day remains unclear, however.
