Looks like Mayor Rahm Emanuel may want to take Karen Lewis seriously.
The Chicago Teachers Union president has been “seriously considering” running for mayor and it would appear she has some voters on her side.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times a recent poll conducted by We Ask America found that if the mayoral election were held now, Lewis would beat Emanuel by 9 percentage points in a head-to-head contest.
The automate telephone poll, which Emanuel's camp reportedly called "laughable," found that Lewis was leading Emanuel 45 percent to 36 percent with 18 percent of voters undecided.
The results were based on responses from more than 1,000 registered Chicago voters who said they were likely to vote in the February election.
"Everywhere I go, people are talking to me about how unhappy they are about the direction of the city in a variety of different ways," Lewis told NBC Chicago.
The survey also found that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle was ahead of Emanuel by an even larger gap of 24 points.
Lewis has said she would support Preckwinkle, but Preckwinkle repeatedly has said she’s running for her current office.
Lewis has not been shy about supporting anyone who would challenge Emanuel. The two have famously tangled even before the teachers strike September 2012.
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The CTU is working with other unions to register as many as 100,000 voters and raise at least $2 million for a candidate to oppose Emanuel.
Lewis is expected to make a final decision in August about whether she will challenge Rahm Emanuel for Mayor. The Chicago mayoral election takes place February 2015.
