Democratic Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot reportedly blamed her re-election defeat on racism and her gender, as Chicagoans tired of soaring violence under her watch voted her out of office by large margins.
“I’m a black woman in America. Of course,” Lightfoot said when asked by a reporter if she had been treated unfairly.
Despite significant criticism for the crime wave, homelessness and other difficulties afflicting the city, the mayor had also inserted race into the run-up to the election.
In the two years after Lightfoot’s election, homicides in Chicago skyrocketed from 500 in 2019 to 776 and 804 in 2020 and 2021, respectively, up from 500 in 2019.
Over the same time period, there was an increase in shootings and carjackings.
Since she vowed to eliminate the epidemic of gun violence in her inauguration address, violent crime in the city has increased by 40%.
The publication blamed part of her problems on unfortunate timing, citing the epidemic and social upheaval that followed the assassination of George Floyd in May 2020.
Lightfoot, the city’s first black woman and openly gay mayor, has become the city’s first elected mayor to lose a re-election attempt since Jane Byrne, the city’s first female mayor, lost her Democratic primary in 1983.
Lightfoot garnered just 16.4% of the vote on Tuesday, trailing former Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson.
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