WGN Mayoral Debate - Rankings and Replay
Candidates for mayor participated last night in a forum held by WGN. Some of the usual occurred, with Lightfoot fairly convincingly quoting stats and defending her administration's record while getting called a liar by others, Ja'Mal Green and Willie Wilson having a fight, long policy proposal lists from Johnson, Buckner, Vallas, and Green, a semi-coherent performance from Roderick Sawyer that somehow still communicates he's good at his city council job, and some forgettable Chuy Garcia canned monologues that said basically nothing. Public safety and policing deeply divided the candidates as usual, with the moderators pressing for how candidates would hire more officers and most candidates providing ideas for that, while Brandon Johnson didn't address that but responded with alternative ideas for investments elsewhere that would address root causes of crime reduce burdens on police. Some others tried to do this as well, in less detail, while also addressing how to increase police recruiting.
What was somewhat unusual was the protestors interrupting candidates, especially Brandon Johnson. It wasn't clear what they were protesting and news coverage hasn't clarified. Johnson handled it well and Lightfoot tried to come to his defense and argue for him to be given a fair hearing as well, which was an interesting moment.
I will note, for all Vallas's increased-policing positioning on public safety and his focus on that issue, he does have some interesting good-government proposals that the eventual mayor should consider.
Rankings for how well candidates accomplished what they needed to in this forum to increase/maintain their support:
Johnson
Buckner
Vallas
Lightfoot
Green
King
Garcia
Sawyer
Wilson