Troy LaRaviere Drops Out Of Chicago's Mayor Race

CHICAGO — Troy LaRaviere, president of the Chicago Principals & Administrators Association, dropped out of the city's mayoral race Tuesday, citing an inability to collect the 12,500 signatures needed to appear on next year's ballot. The deadline for signatures is Nov. 26, but petitions can be turned in as early as Monday.

"In November of 2017, I was the first person to enter the 2019 race for mayor. Today, in November of 2018 it looks as if I will become the first candidate to exit the race," LaRaviere wrote in a statement on his now-former campaign page. "Our crew of volunteers did an amazing job. One volunteer collected nearly 2,000 signatures on her own. I thank them all, and I thank the people who invited me into their homes, who took the time to listen to me and my message and who gave of what they had. Unfortunately, however, it appears we’re going to come up short. The responsibility for this is ultimately my own."

The ex-mayoral candidate said "it would require more money than we’ve been able to raise in an entire year" to collect the additional signatures he would need. That's without factoring in the expected legal challenges of the petitions from "the more well-funded campaigns," LaRaviere added.

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Even with LaRaviere's departure from the race, the field of Chicago mayoral candidates remains large. Eighteen people still are running for the city's top spot, and that doesn't include recently re-elected Illinois Comptroller Susanna Mendoza, who might be considering a run after a video announcing her candidacy days before the November election.

The list of current candidates includes:

• Dorothy Brown, Cook County Circuit Court clerk
• Gery Chico, lawyer, Democrat politician and former head of the Illinois State Board of Education
• William M. Daley, former White House Chief of Staff under President Barack Obama, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, son and brother of former Chicago mayors Richard J. Daley and Richard M. Daley, respectively
• Amara Enyia, community activist supported by Chance the Rapper and Kanye West
• La Shawn K. Ford, 8th District Illinois state representative
• Ja'Mal Green, community activist
• Jerry Joyce Jr., attorney and son of former Alderman Jeremiah E. Joyce
• William J. Kelly, radio broadcaster
• John Kozlar, 11th Ward alderman candidate in 2015
• Lori Lightfoot, former Chicago Police Board president
• Garry McCarthy, former Chicago police superintendent
• Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Board president
• Matthew Roney, pharmaceutical tech
• Neal Sales-Griffin, 30-year-old tech entrepreneur
• Paul Vallas, former Chicago Public Schools CEO
• Roger Washington, Chicago police officer and 24th Ward aldermanic candidate in 2015
• William "Dock" Walls III, owner of American ShirtShak and 2015 mayoral candidate
• Willie Wilson, businessman and 2015 mayoral candidate

While LaRaviere might be the first officially declared candidate to drop out of the race, he isn't the biggest potential candidate who said he isn't running for the mayor's office. That distinction still belongs to Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who announced in September that he isn't running for re-election.

Troy LaRaviere (Photo via campaign)