"Tough on crime," and other post-election thoughts.

Paul Vallas ran a tough on crime campaign. It seemed to serve him well in the primary among more conservative white voters on the northwest, southwest sides, downtown and Lincoln Park.

But not so much in Tuesday’s run-off with Brandon Johnson.

Vallas tried to hang the defund the police slogan on Johnson. Johnson’s campaign did a pretty good job of moving away from it.

What does being tough on crime even mean?

Jail ‘em? Shoot ‘em? More cops?

Or more jobs? More affordable housing? More funding for schools?

The conventional wisdom and the media pundits argued that even poor neighborhoods would respond to Vallas’ tough on crime messaging.

While it was true that public safety is a city-wide concern, especially in poor neighborhoods, voters in those neighborhoods turned out to be, as usual, more sophisticated than the pundits predicted or than Paul Vallas anticipated.

News reports also described the resulting election of Johnson a “squeaker.”

Yes, it was close.

But the 15,000 vote margin out of over 500,000 votes was a win by 3%. That’s not all THAT close. After all, Biden beat Trump by only 4%.

Yes, Chicago is divided. But the election only goes to illustrate the divisions already existing in class, race, gender and opportunities.

In this morning’s New York Times, Nate Cohen wrote:

Mr. Johnson, who is Black, routinely won 80 percent of the vote in the South Side’s majority Black wards, helping him squeak past the moderate Paul Vallas, who won a lot of the rest of the city.

There is much to deconstruct in this short paragraph.

First of all, apparently to the New York Times Brandon Johnson is Black but Paul Vallas’ color is to be unknown.

What does “moderate” even mean when talking about a guy who thinks Donald Trump has been the victim of a witch hunt?

And check out the map. It’s just not true that Brandon won the south and west sides and Vallas “won the rest of the city.”

Brandon Johnson did win 80% of the Black wards which had gone to Lori Lightfoot in the first round. Black voters were the foundation of what Johnson calls his multi-racial, multi-generational coalition.

But he also won the near northwest and north side wards. He won a few wards that Vallas won in February.

In the Latinx 15th ward Alder Ray Lopez, Eddie Burke’s pal, supported Vallas. Johnson didn’t win the ward but he nearly split the vote. In some other Latinx wards Johnson won outright.

There’s more to unpack in looking at the results of Tuesday’s election.

I’ll be doing that with Mario Smith, Rudy Lozano Jr., and my brother and host Mike Klonsky on this week’s Hitting Left. Friday at 11am Chicago time on Lumpen Radio 107.5fm and streaming on Lumpenradio.com.

Also later on hittingleft.libysn.com and other podcast hosting sites like Apple podcasts.