Did The 19th Ward Play Spoiler In 2019 Chicago Mayoral Election?

CHICAGO - Residents of Far Southwest Side neighborhoods Beverly, Mount Greenwood and Morgan Park played a key role in determining the 2019 Chicago Mayoral runoff match-up between top-vote getter Lori Lightfoot and second place primary finisher Toni Preckwinkle. And it's not just because the ward had the highest voter turnout in the entire city.

It wasn't a surprise to see Jerry Joyce dominate the mayoral vote in the 19th Ward. Joyce signs were spotted on just about every block in the neighborhood for weeks before the election. If the number of signs were any indication, it may actually come as a surprise to some that Joyce didn't carry 50 percent of the vote around here.

But in a race with 14 candidates, that would be quite a feat to pull off. He did get some 42 percent, 9,9098 of the votes cast in the ward according to data compiled by NBC-Chicago.

The same NBC chart that showed Joyce's 19th Ward dominance also shows the ward was tops in the whole city when it came to voter turnout. Voter turnout here was approximately 55 percent. In the adjacent 34th Ward, that number dropped to just about 31 percent. And city-wide voter turnout was more in line with the 34th Ward numbers than the 19th.

But high voter turnout locally could not alone propel Joyce into the runoff. He finished seventh with 38,681 total votes.

Coming in second in the 19th Ward was Bill Daley, who did some campaigning here in the days before the election. He received 2,087 votes in the ward, about 10 percent. He came in third overall, some 7,000 votes behind Toni Preckwinkle who made the runoff.

Some have pointed out that the 7,000 vote difference could have come in the 19th Ward had it not been for Joyce's stronghold here. Especially since the difference here between Joyce and Daley was almost exactly 7,000.

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But who is to say the Joyce supporters would have all gone toward Daley had the local favorite not been in the race? Paul Vallas also has neighborhood ties and likely would have picked up some of that vote. As would Garry McCarthy, the "law and order" candidate who had residency here and Gery Chico, who made a stop at 115 Bourbon Street on the Saturday night before the election to be a part of the South Side Irish Parade fundraiser activities.

And to anyone saying Joyce should not have run - just stop. The Chicago Tribune reported there was quite a bit of "grumbling" in the Daley camp about Joyce's candidacy.

But Joyce ran a solid campaign and seemed to unify people in our neighborhood like no other candidate had in any other area of the city. Times have changed, and the Daley name isn't going to mean an automatic vote on the Southwest Side anymore.

The Joyce campaign was "a neighborhood story of a neighborhood champion," according to his website. Local businesses and civic leaders were behind the first-time mayoral candidate, and their attempt to bring more attention to our quiet corner of the city did just that.

Both runoff candidates Lightfoot and Preckwinkle did fairly well here, too. Lightfoot had 1,702 votes in the 19th Ward (4th overall) and Preckwinkle 1,629 votes (5th). It's not like the two do not have a following in this part of the city.

So while a Joyce candidacy may have slightly helped Preckwinkle slip by Daley into the runoff, there was support for both mayoral finalists here as well.

And what a mayoral final this will be. Having two African-American women face off for the top political position in the city is a long-time coming. Whoever wins, the city will elect its first African-American woman as mayor.

This particular match-up still also still offers voters a chance to choose between the machine and the outsider, the establishment and the newcomer.

It should be quite the match-up, and we should all hope that voter turnout on April 2 in the 19th Ward is as high as it was on Feb. 26.