(Bloomberg) -- The race for Chicago mayor is heating up as US Representative Chuy Garcia announced plans to run, ending weeks of speculation over whether he’d seek the city’s top post again.
The Illinois Democrat, who on Tuesday won his re-election bid for the fourth congressional district, is seen as the biggest threat to Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s second term. When he ran for the top post for the first time in 2015, he forced then Mayor Rahm Emanuel into the first runoff since the city moved to non-partisan elections in 1999.
“Chicago is at a crossroads,” said Garcia, 66, announcing his candidacy at Navy Pier, a lakefront attraction in the city. “From crime to unemployment to the shortage of affordable housing, there is so much that we need to build as we emerge from a global pandemic.”
Chicago’s rising crime and high-profile corporate departures have weighed on Lightfoot’s popularity. Still, her administration delivered significant financial improvements, with the city paying all dues into its four severely underfunded pensions for the first time in 2022, and shedding its junk status for the first time since 2015.
“First, we’ve got to get a handle on the violence and crime in our city, Chicagoans are more worried than ever,” Garcia said. “When it comes to economic development and keeping Chicago the world class city that it is, we need to attract new business and development and we need to keep manufacturing right here.”
Garcia had previously said he was considering joining the February race. Speculation grew this week after he was seen recording a video in front of City Hall, and later photographed with J.B. Pritzker as the governor greeted voters on election day. The billionaire Democratic governor won a second term on Tuesday.
Lightfoot, 60, Chicago’s first black female mayor, has helped the city get two ratings upgrades in the past month. Much like a person’s credit score, an improved credit rating can lead to a lower borrowing rate, allowing a city to save money. Getting rid of the junk status that Moody’s Investors Services assigned to the city seven years ago could also help lure more investors when Chicago sells bonds later this month.
But a Harris poll of prospective Chicago voters in June conducted online showed only 22% were at least somewhat satisfied with her performance, while 73% preferred someone else to be the next mayor. Her combative style and frequent disputes with other politicians may be contributing to her low popularity levels.
Garcia, who was born in Mexico, is popular with Hispanic voters. Chicago’s Latino community overtook the Black population for the first time ever in the 2020 census. A Political Action Committee focusing on Latino voters earlier this year urged him to run and commissioned a poll showing him tied with Lightfoot, the Chicago Sun times reported.
He touted his experience at “every level of government” and his role in helping get the American Rescue Plan in place. Those federal dollars, he claims, saved Chicago from recession.
“We should be able to look across our skyline and see cranes and new growth as well as equitable development in our neighborhoods, bringing new good paying union jobs, new retail and new vitality to our city,” he said.
In response to his announcement, Lightfoot campaign spokeswoman Christina Freundlich said Garcia is a “career politician” who is “prioritizing his own ambitions.”
“A mere 36 hours after voters re-elected him to Congress, and as Republicans prepare to use their new slim majority to strip away our rights, Mr. Garcia is abandoning ship and going after a fellow progressive Democrat,” Freundlich said. “That’s not the tough, principled leadership our city needs.”
--With assistance from Elizabeth Campbell.
(Updates with Garcia comments and response from Lightfoot campaign)
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