Chicago Election Review: Rahm faces runoff election

February 24, 2015

By Ballotpedia's Municipal government team

Chicago's mayoral race will head to a runoff on April 7 after incumbent Rahm Emanuel failed to achieve the 50-percent-plus-one vote threshold needed to secure an outright victory. In the city council races, one of the 43 incumbents seeking re-election was defeated outright. Nineteen of the 50 city council races will move to an April 7 runoff to decide the winner.

Mayor

Though polling in recent weeks showed Emanuel nearly at the victory threshold, the outcome of the election rested in the hands of the large number of undecided voters. Many of those voters seemed to cast their support behind Jesus "Chuy" Garcia. The current 45-34 gap between the two leaves plenty of room for supporters of the other candidates to decide the race in April.

Mayor of Chicago, 2015
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Rahm Emanuel Incumbent	45.4%	208,305
Jesus "Chuy" Garcia	33.9%	155,545
Willie Wilson	10.6%	48,660
Robert W. "Bob" Fioretti	7.4%	33,911
William "Dock" Walls, III	2.8%	12,692
Total Votes		459,113
Source: Ace of Spades - Unofficial election results

City council

A total of 184 candidates ran for the 50 city council seats up for election. Forty-three incumbents ran for re-election, with one of them falling to a challenger. In Ward 35, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa defeated incumbent Rey Colón. Another 14 incumbents will face runoff elections in April. Open seats were heavily contested, featuring an average of six candidates each. Five of those wards must wait until April to see who their new representatives are.

See also

• United States municipal elections, 2015
• Chicago, Illinois municipal elections, 2015

External links

• Ace of Spades - Unofficial mayoral election results
• Chicago Tribune - Unofficial city council election results