Schadenfreude runs amok as Lori Lightfoot becomes first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose re-election

As Chicago’s first gay black female mayor, Lori Lightfoot came into office breaking glass ceilings and she will depart breaking history, being the first incumbent mayor to lose reelection in 40 years.

Of course, the former may have a lot to do with the latter considering the key qualification she brought to the table may have been that she is a black lesbian.

Considered by some the worst mayor in America, Lightfoot lost her bid for re-election Tuesday in a big way, getting just 17.1% of the overall vote in the nine-person race — the top two vote-getters now advance to a runoff election.

“The embattled Democrat, who has been dogged by persistent crime in the city, failed to get enough votes to advance to an April runoff election,” NBC News reported.

Front runner Paul Vallas, a former CEO of Chicago schools, will take on Cook County commissioner Brandon Johnson in the runoff — Vallas received 33.8% of the vote, compared to Johnson’s 20.3 percent,

Par for the course, the woman who cited equity to announce in 2021 that she would no longer sit down with white reporters blamed her loss on racism when a reporter asked if she had been treated unfairly during the election.

“I’m a black woman in America. Of course,” Lightfoot replied.

The Chicago Tribune called her loss a “political embarrassment,” noting that Lightfoot campaigned on lowering crime back in 2019, saying she wanted to make Chicago the “safest big city in the country.”

Instead, the newspaper said, crime “skyrocketed” on Lightfoot’s watch.

For her part, the Democrat said she will leave office with her “head held high,” and claimed that she “put the city on a better path.”

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, a liberal, took to Twitter to say, “There is hope for my home city yet. Lori Lightfoot is out. The greatest potential improvement for the city since 1900 when the direction of the Chicago river was reversed.”

There was plenty of schadenfreude to go around given Lightfoot’s many antics, which included standing on a stage last summer after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and screaming, “F*ck Clarence Thomas!”

Here’s but a small sampling of the hilarity from Twitter:

Tom Tillison

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