Will Chicago Progressives Unite Behind Chuy Garcia, Rahm’s 11th-Hour Challenger?

It’s official: There’s a new candidate in the race for Mayor of Chicago, and he could carry some weight. Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia threw his hat in the ring on October 27, less than four weeks before the deadline to get on the ballot. Garcia is picking up the torch from Karen Lewis, the wildly popular Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) president who was seen as the most viable challenger to sitting Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the upcoming February election before she was forced out of the race by health problems. Garcia has already won endorsements from Lewis, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and a coterie of other Chicago progressive groups.

At the CTU’s annual fundraiser on October 31, Garcia was introduced to a roomful of progressive aldermen, union leaders and education activists as “Chicago’s new mayor."

Garcia’s supporters tout the work he did as an alderman in the 1980s, when he was a prominent ally to Chicago’s first African-American mayor, Harold Washington. Washington’s time as mayor, from 1983-1987, is widely viewed by progressives as a golden age in local politics, one which many of Emanuel’s challengers in the mayoral race have promised to resurrect.

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