Six years ago the major media were caught off guard by the political potency of Harold Washington’s movement. Election day left them gaping. Now, judging from their initial coverage of the February 28 mayoral primary, they may be underestimating the movement again.
First is the assertion that Daley won by a landslide. This is true in a relative sense: Daley did beat Sawyer 55 percent to 44 percent. However, to the extent that “landslide” implies invincible popularity, it is a misleading description of the primary vote. Daley’s winning total this year actually fell 25,000 votes short of Jane Byrne’s losing total against Harold Washington two years ago. And Daley lagged behind Washington himself by more than 100,000 votes. In the 1987 primary Washington hauled in some 588,000 votes to Byrne’s 509,000. This year Daley managed only 484,000. He won only because Sawyer did so miserably–attracting only 383,000 votes.
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Washington’s winning turnouts came from blacks, Latinos, and liberal and progressive whites mainly along the north lakefront. In 18 of 19 predominantly black wards on the south and west sides, Daley picked up a combined total of only about 2,000 more votes than Byrne got in ’87. In the six north lakefront wards combined, he did surpass Byrne by more than 6,000 votes–but only after nearly 12,000 new voters registered in these wards between 1987 and 1989. Without the newcomers, mainly white yuppies, Daley would probably have fallen short of Byrne’s showing.
In three of the four Latino wards, Daley received a collective total of about 1,000 votes fewer than Jane Byrne did.
To win, a black candidate does need to unite the black vote–but he or she also needs to appeal to the liberal and progressive agendas of the minority of mainly lakefront whites, to Latinos, and to a network of activists who have long been committed to working in a multiracial coalition–people like Jesus Garcia in the 22nd Ward (Little Village), Danny Davis in the 29th (Austin), and David Orr in the 49th (East Rogers Park).
And when Evans held a press conference in mid-February to reiterate that absolutely, positively no way would he support Sawyer, and that his refusal was a matter of principle, he solidified that progressive support.
The answer, subject to the unpredictable ups and downs of hard-fought Chicago mayoral contests, is that Evans faces an uphill but not unwinnable campaign.
