Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) lost her bid for reelection Tuesday after receiving only 17% of the vote, placing her third out of all the candidates.
Her tenure was marked by numerous anti-Second Amendment actions, a sharp uptick in crime and her “protection for me, but not for thee” attitude toward her constituency.
Under her leadership, crime has risen 52% since 2022 and over 100% since 2021. When Chicago voters were polled earlier this year about how safe they felt, more than half said “not too safe” (28%) or “not safe” (33%). Only four percent replied they felt “very safe.”
So, what has Mayor Lightfoot done to address crime? She has blamed guns, over and over.
In 2021, after multiple Chicago officers were shot—one fatally—during a routine traffic stop, Lightfoot blamed guns, rather than the criminals who committed the heinous, cold-blooded attack.
In 2020, she claimed a rise in violence was the fault of cities and jurisdictions around Chicago rather than the city she governs.
“We are being inundated with guns from states that have virtually no gun control, no background checks, no ban on assault weapons—that is hurting cities like Chicago,” said Lightfoot
“We have a common enemy: it’s guns & the violence they bring,” tweeted Lightfoot, failing to mention anything about criminals or the fact that Chicago—as well as Illinois—has some of the strictest gun-control laws in the nation.
The soon-to-be-former Chicago mayor also eliminated over 600 vacant jobs from Chicago’s police department rather than filling them—in spite of some describing police staffing as “unsustainably low”—while also enjoying armed security, including “a special police security detail of approximately 71 officers, in addition to the mayor’s existing ‘separate personal bodyguard detail’ of 20 officers.”
“It seems Lightfoot, however, is more interested in scoring political points by promoting anti-gun policies embraced by the far left, rather than considering strategies that will actually help the citizens of her city,” reported the NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
The race to be Chicago’s mayor will now head to a runoff election, which will take place on April 4. The remaining candidates are Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, who received roughly 33% and 20% of the vote, respectively.
So long, Mayor Lightfoot.
