In Chicago mayoral runoff, Latinos urged to flex their ‘political muscle’

CHICAGO — Agustina Salinas started her first day of canvassing excited about getting people from her majority Latino neighborhood out to vote in the upcoming mayoral runoff. But one hour into her Sunday afternoon shift, after knocking on dozens of doors in the Back of the Yards, she was growing frustrated that no one was answering, especially when she could hear people inside.

“I feel like it’s a little discouraging, no?” Salinas, 27, said as she walked over to another house in the southwest side of the city, holding a stack of bilingual fliers reminding voters the election is Tuesday. “This is low-key super important. This is about the future of my neighborhood — our neighborhood.”

As the race for mayor of the nation’s third-largest city comes to a close, Chicago voters are facing a choice between two candidates offering sharply different visions for addressing public safety, the dominant concern of voters. Paul Vallas, a moderate Democrat and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, and Brandon Johnson, a liberal Democrat and Cook County commissioner, are in a tight runoff race, after claiming the top two spots in February’s general election, pushing out incumbent Mayor Lori Lightfoot. Latinos, who make up close to a third of the population and 1 in 5 registered voters here, could play a key role in choosing the next mayor — if they show up.

The candidates, community leaders and Latino groups are grappling with a long-standing challenge that transcends any one politician or city: How to get Latinos to turn out in large numbers.

Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.), who had hoped to become the city’s first Latino mayor, said turnout in February was “disappointing.” Early in the race, the Mexican-born congressman, who also ran for mayor in 2015, had been viewed in Chicago political circles as a top contender, but he came in fourth place.

“Your political muscle is going to determine, I think, to a great degree, how successful you are in being taken seriously at every table in society,” Garcia, who has been in Chicago politics for decades, said in an interview. “A breakthrough in politics gets you to other tables — whether it’s on school boards, in higher education, in corporate America or even Hollywood.”

Interviews with more than a dozen Latino community leaders and voters suggest a combination of reasons people don’t go to the polls: Some are doubtful their vote matters and don’t trust politicians. Some are still bummed that the candidate they supported in February lost. Others don’t know there’s an election or who the candidates are.

Among Latino registered voters, 46 percent favor Vallas, and 35 percent prefer Johnson, according to a poll released Tuesday from Northwestern University’s Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy and a coalition of Black and Latino nonprofits. Almost 1 in 5 Latino registered voters remains undecided, the poll found.

The poll also found that 60 percent of Latino voters are certain they will vote in the runoff, compared with 73 percent of Black voters and 74 percent of White voters.

Garcia, who has endorsed Johnson, said he didn’t expect there to be much of an increase in Latino turnout in the runoff. He said “a lot of work needs to be done” to change turnout trends across the country.

“From talking with friends on the East Coast and West Coast, Latino voters haven’t been showing up in great numbers in either of those places, whether it’s New York or L.A.,” Garcia said. “We need to figure out how to better connect and motivate Latino voters, without a doubt, because this isn’t what we had set out to achieve, certainly not when I announced for mayor.”

While Hispanic voters’ share of the national electorate continues to grow, turnout rates have lagged behind other racial or ethnic groups. In the 2020 presidential election, turnout increased among eligible Hispanic voters, jumping to 53 percent, up seven points from 46 percent in 2016, according to Census survey data. However, participation still lagged behind other groups: Turnout among White eligible voters was 73 percent, among Black voters it was 66 percent and among Asian American voters it was 62 percent.

In the New York mayoral election in 2021, the estimated Hispanic turnout rate among registered voters was 15 percent, compared with 23 percent for Black voters and 32 percent for White voters, according to data from voter file firm L2.

In Los Angeles, where one in every three registered voters is Latino, estimated turnout among Hispanic registered voters in the mayoral primary election was 21 percent, compared with 29 percent for Black voters and 43 percent for White voters, according to a Washington Post analysis of L2 data. In the November runoff, which coincided with the 2022 midterms, turnout among Hispanic voters was 32 percent, compared with 60 percent of White voters, 41 percent of Black voters and 46 percent among Asian American voters.

Both Johnson’s and Vallas’s campaigns have been courting Latino voters with events hosted in several Latino-heavy neighborhoods, as well as running Spanish-language ads. They’ve also deployed Latino elected officials and community leaders to rally voters on their behalf.

Still, almost half of Latino registered voters, 47 percent, said they had not been contacted by a campaign or local group to go vote, according to the Northwestern poll, which was conducted by BSP Research. That lack of outreach has left some residents like Roberto Duran, 29, of the West Elsdon neighborhood, unsure of who the candidates even are — let alone if either would get his vote.

“I haven’t been contacted, not really,” said Duran, a real estate agent, after attending a mayoral forum focused on the environment in the majority-Latino neighborhood of Pilsen. He noted that he’s never voted before and is lukewarm about going to the polls for this race. “I feel like personally [my vote] wouldn’t make a difference.”

While door-knocking, Salinas came across a few voters who opened their doors. One asked her what day the election was and didn’t know that early voting had already begun. Another said he didn’t know anything about who was running.

Luz Cortez, who works with nonprofit La Casa Norte, started the day canvassing with Salinas before they divided up blocks to separately tackle in Back of the Yards. Cortez, 30, who was joined by her sister Kassandra, 28, said some of the Latino voters canvassers have talked to were loyal to candidates who didn’t make it to the runoff, so they reminded them it’s still important to come out and vote.

Salinas and the Cortez sisters are canvassing as part of a nonpartisan effort by La Casa Norte, which has teamed with Hispanic Federation and the Puerto Rican Cultural Center to mobilize Hispanic voters. The groups are aiming to knock on 10,000 doors, make 150,000 calls and send 200,000 texts reminding Latinos to vote by Tuesday.

Salinas, a single mom to a 2-year-old daughter, said she didn’t vote in the February general election because she was out of town. She said she still has to do more research before deciding who she’s going to vote for in the runoff. She’s leaning toward Johnson, but she recently attended a mayoral forum and was surprised that she agreed with some of what she heard Vallas saying about public safety.

“I don’t mind police presence, but it’s complicated,” Salinas, who works in violence prevention, said, adding that she feels safe when she sees police officers.

Salinas said she’s more inclined to support Johnson because of his focus on investing in youth and mental health resources to address public safety. She recently started going to therapy and has seen the difference it makes, especially in tackling the trauma of having grown up in a neighborhood with high amounts of gun violence. Salinas lives in Canaryville, a neighborhood east of Back of the Yards.

“When I was living here, I wouldn’t be able to sleep well because you just hear the gunshots … and you’re just like, ‘Oh my God,’” she said. “Now that I’m not in the neighborhood, I don’t hear the gunshots and I sleep through the night. I’m not as nervous coming home with my daughter.”

Meanwhile, Alderman Silvana Tabares, who is Latina and whose ward includes majority-Latino Little Village, said it’s because people want to feel safe in their neighborhood that many in her ward are supporting Vallas. Tabares has endorsed Vallas and has been campaigning for him on the southwest side of the city.

“We’re tired of the carjackings. We’re tired of the drag racing and the gangs taking over our streets,” Tabares said in an interview. “We want a mayor that’s going to tackle the city’s crime problem, not use it as an opportunity to defund the police. That scares our community.”

Johnson has faced attacks from Vallas — and other candidates, including Lightfoot, before the February election — saying that Johnson supports defunding the police after he proposed in 2020 to redirect funds from policing to social services. On the campaign trail, Johnson, a former public school teacher who has been endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union, has said he does not support defunding the police and wants a more “holistic” approach to public safety. Vallas has campaigned on a law-and-order message, pledging to hire more officers and accepting an endorsement by the Fraternal Order of Police.

Tabares noted that her ward is home to many first responders and police officers who are backing Vallas. Some, she said, have told her that they will move out of the city if Johnson wins.

In Daniel Maldonado’s barbershop, politics used to be an off-limits topic. But in recent years, his friendship with a local teacher and organizer has swayed him to be more open to discussing elections after years of being turned off by the city’s machine politics, which he regards as being corrupt and only benefiting certain people.

His barbershop, called HOP 22, which stands for Heart of Pilsen, is located near one of the major streets in Pilsen. The area has been home to many Mexican-immigrant and working-class families, but in recent years, more are being displaced by gentrification.

In his shop, Maldonado proudly represents his hometown. His brother Mario, who owns a store just a few blocks away, designed a custom wallpaper for the wall facing the entrance that features photos of Chicago, logos of local sports teams and the national coat of arms of Mexico. Music plays loudly as his customers and barbers speak in a mix of English and Spanish.

“For me, personally, it has always left a sour taste in my mouth knowing Chicago politics, knowing that our governors do federal prison time,” Maldonado said, referring to how four of the past 11 Illinois governors have been convicted of corruption charges. “So it’s hard to go out there and to support and vote.”

Maldonado, 37, is backing Johnson, but he’s seen a clear split among clients in his barbershop. Many are police officers backing Vallas, as are several of his siblings and relatives who are in law enforcement.

At a recent brunch event in Pilsen to support Johnson, Maldonado and his brother discussed one reason they think Latinos are backing Vallas: Some think he’s Latino. The Northwestern poll found that one-third of Latinos think Vallas, who is the grandson of Greek immigrants, may be Latino.

“I have a feeling, like, a lot of Latino people are going to think Vallas is Vayas,” Mario Maldonado said. In Spanish, double ls are pronounced like y.

Daniel Maldonado chimed in: “When I first heard his name I thought that … but I hadn’t done research, just had heard his name.”

Growing up, Maldonado said his family never talked about politics. Now, he sees being part of the conversation on the issues as a way for Latinos in communities like his to move forward.

“It’s a mold we have to break,” Maldonado said. “Not talking about [politics] is holding us back … and it’s a deep-rooted culture we have to change.”

Lenny Bronner and Kim Bellware contributed to this report.