July 23, 2025
COOK COUNTY DEMOCRATS TOSS KAEGI, STEELE INTO DUMPSTER AT SLATEMAKING, DEMOTE DAVIS

As Monty Python’s John Cleese famously quipped, “And now for something completely different.”

Instead of  criticizing, satirizing and mocking Democrats at all levels, especially in Cook County, for their arrogance, incompetence and corruption, I'm going to praise them for a change.

I’m going to heap praise on Cook County Democrats’ epic non-Woke/Left, non-Trump-bashing performance at their July 17-18 slate making.

They were laser-focused on winning, not whining. It was all-business. Whomever the Dems slate usually will get elected to the countywide offices on the 2026 ballot. So there was a very strict candidate criterion: No Losers. No Ingrates. No Drunks. No Commies. No Retreads. No Moochers.

This was county chair Toni Preckwinkle’s show and the party was more concerned about loyalty and electability and less obsessed about identity this time around.

Assessor Fritz Kaegi was dumped. Board of Review commissioner Samantha Steele was dumped partly because of her public DUI arrest. Appointed judge Linda Sackie was sacked because of negative BAR ratings. And MWRD commissioner Cameron (Cam) Davis was semi-dumped.

Davis owns the prosperous blueberry North Sky Farm  in South Haven, Michigan, and is licensed to practice law in that state. He spends a whole lot of his time more than a 100 miles from Chicago.  A whole lot of Democrats thought he was missing in action and didn’t deserve another $60,000-a year 6-year term. But they didn’t dump him. Instead – and this is a masterpiece of Machiavellian political tactics – they slated him for the 2-tear vacancy term, which means he has to run again in 2028.

So if he doesn’t get back to Chicago more frequently between now and the summer of 2027 and show up at more party events (and donate some money) he will get dumped next time (2028). Get with the plan, Cam.

Outgoing state Comptroller Susana Mendoza possesses no shortage of hubris. But she has integrity. She publicly stated she would not run in 2026 if she decided to run for Chicago mayor in 2027. She kept that promise and did not seek reelection. She has not formally announced a mayoral bid.

Mendoza, age 53, the former Chicago city clerk, ran for mayor in 2019 and received a dismal 9.1 percent. At a recent press conference, Mayor Brandon Johnson was asked what he thought about Mendoza running for his job. He said he doesn’t really think about her. “Not many voters thought about her either."

She is not a Woke/Leftist and her demographic base is among Mexican-Americans. She has no support among West Side Puerto Ricans who have and will embrace Brandon Johnson again.

Anyway, Mendoza’s only pathway to victory is to finish second in the Feb. 2027 multi-candidate non-partisan election and then take out Johnson in the April runoff. Her major obstacle is Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias (D), age 51, who IS running for reelection, has been re-slated, and will be on the ballot in Nov. 2026. But that may be a distinct disadvantage. It’s rather awkward and opportunistic to be running for reelection to one office while simultaneously running for another and raising money for that job. It’s not illegal. JB Pritzker (D) is running for reelection in 2026 and may be running for president in 2028.

It will be remembered that now-congressman Jesus "Chuy" Garcia (D-4), who ran respectably for mayor in 2015 and would have been the leading Left/Reform contender in 2019, chose to run for an open congressional seat in 2018. That effectively tied him up until after he won in Nov. and he didn’t run. When he did, in 2023, he got 11.6 percent. Timing is everything. That is the hardcore citywide Mexican-American voter base, which Mendoza got in 2019.

But Mendoza is free to spend the next 19 months raising cash and positioning as THE anti-Johnson alternative. That issue alone will expand her base as polls have consistently shown that over three-quarters of Chicagoans disapprove of Johnson’s job performance. Johnson is less popular than predecessor Lori Lightfoot, which I didn’t even think was possible. But the mayor has his base and should get enough votes to make the runoff. He has $1,138,367 cash-on-hand as of June 30. But that can change quickly with the Chicago Teachers Union as his ally.

Mendoza had $1,397,818 on-hand and Giannoulias $4,689,750.  A lot of success in politics is attributable to just being in the right place at the right time. For any would-be mayor that place is the April 2027 runoff with Johnson.

U.S. SENATOR: No endorsement was made for Dick Durbin’s (D) open seat – which counts as a major victory for northwest suburban congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-8). No actual vote was taken among the three major candidates, which also include lieutenant governor Juliana Stratton, a South Side Chicagoan backed by Pritzker and south suburban congresswoman Robin Kelly (D-2). There will be an “open primary,” which means each ward and township committeeperson/organization can endorse whomever they want.

It’s going to be unending “Christmastime” from now to March 17. Krishnamoorthi has $11.7 million already on-hand and will raise another 10 million. Pritzker will spend his millions – or whatever it takes – to nominate Stratton. That’s a lot of trickle-down money going into the pockets of a lot of politicians.

At the slate making, the Black Caucus controlled about a third of the weighted vote but that was split between Stratton (city) and Kelly (suburban). “Nobody was even close to 50 percent,” said one committeeperson. The fact is that Stratton cannot win if Kelly siphons off a quarter of the Black base. Expect tremendous pressure on Kelly to drop out by Labor Day.

The latest poll by GBAO on June 10 has the race at 32/10/14 percent for Krishnamoorthi/Stratton/Kelly. The cash-on-hand breakout was $11,758.706/$666.416/$2,204,924

COMPTROLLER: Score one for the governor. To replace Mendoza the Dems had an acute identity crisis – as in identity politics. They had to pick a woman. And they picked Margaret Croke, a state rep from Lakeview who was once Pritzker’s aide. Others were Holly Kim, Lake County treasurer, and state senator Karina Villa from West Chicago. Croke won narrowly.

ASSESSOR: Kaegi is the last victim of COVID. The pandemic totally changed the workplace culture: Employees need not work in an office. That revelation had a twofold effect: Offices became vacant and there was no demand to build more offices, thereby impacting the trade unions.

Kaegi defeated Joe Berrios in 2018 by promising to change the pay-to-play culture of the office. Owners of valuable, revenue-producing commercial and industrial property got their tax assessments reduced the old-fashioned way: They bought it. They would hire lawyers who donated to Berrios and got huge tax breaks which, of course, resulted in shifting more of the tax burden to residential owners. Kaegi upped assessments on the Loop before COVID arrived.

Then it was back to the Same Old/Same Old. The plethora of vacancies meant a collapse in property values – and in property taxes paid. And despite ongoing stagnation in the housing market residential taxes went up. Big spenders like Johnson and CPS get some blame. But Kaegi gets all of the blame. And especially from trade unions, which spent $1 million to beat him in 2022.

Kaegi has feuded with Board of Review chair Larry Rogers Jr., who represents the Black South Side district. Whenever Kaegi raises/lowers a property’s assessed valuation then Rogers/BOR reverses it. The candidate groomed to take out Kaegi in 2026 was Rogers ally and fellow BOR commissioner Samantha Steele.

But she was arrested on suspicions of DUI last November and copped an attitude: The “Do you know who I am?” kind of stuff. Sure, the CPD cop probably said, you’re the lady slurring your words on a police body camera after sideswiping a bunch of parked vehicles. They found an open bottle of wine and she insulted an officer’s manhood. End of story (and career). The police report is online.

She contested the 1-year suspension of her driving privileges and had her license reinstated after a judge cited some technicalities with the officer’s paperwork, affording to published reports.

At slate making three anti-Kaegi candidates emerged: Timnetra Burruss and Dana Pointer, and southwest suburban Lyons Township assessor Patrick Hynes, who is a distant relative of the 19th Ward Hynes Clan (Tom Hynes is a former assessor). The procedure was to eliminate the last-placer on the next ballot. On the fifth ballot Hynes topped Kaegi by 60/40.

"I’m running,” said Kaegi, who is well-known. He has $1,365,687 on-hand and his D-2s show that he “loaned” his campaign $5,396,000 (meaning self-funded) in the 2022 cycle. It is said no good deed goes unpunished. If Kaegi wants to keep being a Boy Scout it will cost him another $5 mil.

Read more Analysis & Opinion from Russ Stewart at Russstewart.com

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