Chicago mayoral runoff heads into the last lap

CHICAGO — With a runoff election between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County Commissioner Jesús "Chuy" Garcia on Tuesday, voters here are experiencing something they haven't seen in years: An incumbent mayor campaigning hard for their votes.

Nearly six weeks after none of the five candidates vying for mayor won a majority of the votes, Emanuel and Garcia crisscrossed the city over the holiday weekend as they made their closing arguments.

"I am asking for your vote not only for this election," Emanuel told voters at a get-out-the vote rally Saturday on Chicago's South Side, where he courted African-American voters with Atlanta's Mayor Kasim Reed by his side. "More importantly, I'm asking for your continued work together … because we all have a stake in it."

Not since Richard M. Daley won the first of six consecutive terms in 1989 has a Chicago mayoral race had even a whiff of competitiveness. Chicago ceased holding party primaries in 1995, when it switched to the current election format. Tuesday will be the city's first mayoral runoff.

Garcia has a steep mountain to climb to unseat Emanuel, who is seeking his second term.

Since the runoff campaign began, Emanuel — who has raised about eight times as much money as his opponent — has buried Garcia in negative advertising that criticizes him for being vague about his plans to deal with the city's financial crisis. Emanuel touts himself as an experienced hand who has brought thousands of jobs to Chicago and can get the city through tough times.

Polls show that Emanuel has gone from being knotted in a dead heat with Garcia to a double-digit lead.

Still, seasoned watchers of the Chicago political scene say the race could be much closer.

Pollsters have suggested that Hispanics, who are a fast-growing community in Chicago and at the center of Garcia's voting bloc, are undersampled in polling.

After 34% of eligible voters turned out for the general election in February, election officials have seen a big spike in early voting for the runoff. More than 142,000 voters cast early ballots, compared with nearly 90,000 early ballots cast in the general election six weeks ago. Tuesday's voting will take place during spring break for Chicago schools, which might mean vacationing families already voted — or would skip voting.

"The real issue is who is going to show up to vote, who the motivated voters are," said Dick Simpson, a former alderman who teaches political science at the University of Illinois-Chicago. "I think this race is closer than the polls show it to be."

The runoff comes as Chicago is deep in debt. The city has $20 billion in unfunded pension obligations, the schools have a $1.1 billion deficit, and the city's shabby financial situation has led to its bond rating being downgraded repeatedly.

Garcia argues that Emanuel has done a poor job with city finances and violent crime. He has blasted the expansive use of red-light cameras, which generate tens of millions of dollars for the city but are widely scorned by Chicago residents.

Garcia, who is backed by the Chicago Teachers Union, also says Emanuel has run roughshod over the city's teachers and parents.

Emanuel closed 50 public schools with low enrollment during his first term and had a rancorous relationship with the teachers union, which in 2012 went on strike for the first time in 25 years.

Garcia derides Emanuel as "Mayor 1%" and calls him a tool of the wealthy. Emanuel's campaign and a political action committee aligned with him and his City Council allies have raised more than $30 million combined, the bulk of which has come from about 100 contributors.

The commissioner says that if he is elected he will hire an additional 1,000 police officers and end the use of red-light cameras. He has suggested that he would reopen some of the schools shuttered by Emanuel. But he appears to have had a tough time convincing voters that his lofty campaign promises are feasible.

"Ultimately he did not provide a simple answer to Emanuel's hard-hitting question 'How would he pay for it all?'" the Chicago polling firm Ogden & Fry wrote Sunday in an analysis that accompanied its latest poll, which showed Emanuel leading by 18%. "The voters know Chicago's budget is a mess and don't want to see their property taxes or rent (indirectly) increase."

Garcia has been endorsed by liberal politicians such as former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent. He has relied on prominent activists like Gloria Steinem, Rev. Jesse Jackson and philosopher-activist Cornel West to make the case that Emanuel, a centrist Democrat, is not good for Chicago.

"Brother Rahm is not a brother of integrity," West said. "He is too mean and arrogant. He's too condescending. He's too paternalistic."

Emanuel, a former chief of staff to President Obama who also served in Congress, has worked to soften his image in recent weeks. The mayor's imperious reputation goes back to his Washington days. While working in the Clinton administration, he once sent a pollster he was angry with a dead fish.

In one of his first TV ads after the runoff, Emanuel admitted that he "can rub people the wrong way." He revisited the theme in his latest ad, which began airing last week.

"Chicago's a great city, but we can be even better," Emanuel says in the ad. "And yeah, I hear ya, so can I."