September 4, 2018

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Won’t Seek a Third Term

A dozen candidates are vying to replace the embattled incumbent.

Rahm Emanuel at a press conference in August 2018.Teresa Crawford/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel will not seek reelection to a third term in office, he said at a press conference this morning. The announcement came as a surprise, as the embattled mayor has raised millions of dollars over the past year for his re-election bid. It also opened up the race for a crowded field of a dozen candidates, including likely frontrunner Lori Lightfoot, a black, openly gay former prosecutor whose platform includes police accountability and criminal justice reform.

“For the last seven and a half years I’ve given my all every day and left everything on the field. This commitment has required significant sacrifice all around,” Emanuel said. “We have more to do and from now until then, we will do everything in our power to get it done and walk out the door hopefully leaving Chicago and Chicagoans in a better place.”

That announcement heralds an end to a tumultuous two terms for Emanuel, a former congressman and White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama. In 2011, Emanuel won his first mayoral term in a landslide, but he was forced into a run-off in 2015. More recently, he faced calls for his resignation due to his handling of the fatal shooting of a teenager, Laquan McDonald, by Chicago police—activists accused him of trying to cover-up the shooting for fear it would hurt his re-election chances. (Jury selection begins Wednesday in the murder trial of the officer who shot McDonald.) Emanuel also faced local outcry over his 2013 decision to close 50 schools in predominately black and brown neighborhoods.

After the news broke that Emanuel was stepping back, Obama released a statement celebrating his old friend’s achievements. “As a mayor, congressman, and my first White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel has been a tireless and brilliant public servant,” Obama said. “Whatever he chooses to do next, I know he’ll continue to make a positive difference just as he has throughout his career in public service.”

Local activists, meanwhile, celebrated Emanuel’s announcement on Twitter—superstar Chance the Rapper among them.

The voting takes place in February 2019.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate