The politics of crime: what Chicago’s mayoral race reveals about the US

Election could serve as a bellwether for how voters think about public safety as they choose between duelling approaches

There are few issues besides keeping a clean alley that most Chicagoans agree on. Yet, last week, a majority of the city's voters ousted incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the city's mayoral primary.

With just under 17% of the vote, Lightfoot became the first mayor to fail to advance to the runoff election since Jane Byrne lost the 1983 primary. But the recent election was not a stunning rebuke of Lightfoot, who commanded third place with a loyal base of mostly Black voters on the city's South and West Sides, but a demand for a radically different approach toward combating crime amid pandemic recovery, with one candidate focused on law and order and the other hoping to boost the social safety net.