Chicago Election Reaction (Part 3)

Brandon Johnson wins! After being more optimistic than most others over the last few months about Johnson's chances, my hopes had dimmed a bit in the last couple of weeks, so I was pleasantly surprised when the expected close race was unexpectedly a slight Johnson win instead of a slight Vallas win. This is huge for Chicago as the mayor has so much power to influence how things work in the city regardless of where city council stands.

At the same time, progressives did well this year in council elections, defeating well-funded establishment candidates in the 12th, 21st, 26th, 46th, and 48th and holding on to highly targeted seats in the 1st, 25th, and 33rd.

Progressive and semi-progressive numbers on the council continue to grow but fall just short of a majority. Johnson will need to find common ground with establishment black alders like Coleman, Scott, Harris, Mitchell, and Mitts in order to bring progressive change, which is a tough road, but an easier one than it would have been in the previous council. Expectations for truly transformative change should be restrained, but we're definitely in a better spot than 4 years ago.

Here's the full new council. Purple are who I'd consider "true progressives", blue are generally liberal but I have some concerns, yellow are moderate/establishment and I have a lot of concerns, and red are right-wing or have serious corruption concerns and are clear opponents of progressive change.

Progressive	Semi-Progressive	Moderate	Conservative/Corruption
1- La Spata	3- Dowell	2- Hopkins	9- Beale
6- Hall (NEW)	4- Robinson (NEW)	7- Mitchell	10- Chico (NEW)
12- Ramirez (NEW)	5- Yancy (NEW)	8- Harris	13- Quinn
20- Taylor	14- Gutierrez (NEW)	11- Lee (1st full)	15- Lopez
22- M Rodriguez	17- Moore	16- Coleman	18- Curtis
25- Sigcho	21- Mosley (NEW)	23- Tabares	19- O'Shea
26- Fuentes (NEW)	30- Cruz (NEW)	24- Scott (1st full)	27- Burnett
33- R Rodriguez	31- Cardona	29- awaiting result	28- Ervin
35- Rosa	32- Waguespack	34- Conway (NEW)	38- Sposato
40- Vasquez		36- Villegas	41- Napolitano
46- Clay (NEW)		37- Mitts	45- Gardiner
47- Martin		39- Nugent
48- Manaa-Hoppenworth (NEW)		42- Reilly
49- Hadden		43- Knudsen (1st full)
		44- Lawson (NEW)
		50- Silverstein