1979 Chicago Mayoral Election
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The 1979 Chicago mayoral election was first the primary on February 27, 1979, which was followed by the general on April 3, 1979. The election saw the election of Chicago, Illinois' first female mayor, and the first female mayor of any major American city, Jane M. Byrne. Byrne defeated Republican Wallace Johnson by a landslide 66 percent margin of victory, winning more than 82 percent of the vote. Byrne's 82% of the vote is the most any candidate has received in a Chicago mayoral election. Byrne had won the Democratic Party's nomination by narrowly defeating incumbent mayor Michael A. Bilandic in the party's
primary election Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pr ...
.


Primaries and nominations

60.5% of registered voters participated in the primary elections.


Democratic primary

The Cook County Democratic Party organization (run by the city Democratic
political machine In the politics of representative democracies, a political machine is a party organization that recruits its members by the use of tangible incentives (such as money or political jobs) and that is characterized by a high degree of leadership c ...
) had fully supported incumbent mayor Michael A. Bilandic's bid for renomination for election to a full term as mayor. Byrne, whom Bilandic had previously fired from the post of the city's Commissioner of Consumer Sales in 1977, had launched an underdog challenge to Bilandic. In what was regarded to be a major upset to the Chicago Democratic machine, Jane Byrne succeeded in pulling off an insurgent challenge to Bilandic. Turnout in the primary was among the greatest in Chicago mayoral history. By some reports, turnout was 839,443, which was 58.97% of Chicago's 1,423,476 voters. Turnout exceeded the average mayoral primary election turnout in the years since 1955 by more than 10 percentage points. Byrne was a first-time candidate for elected office. She campaigned as a progressive reformer. Her campaign manager was Don Rose, who had previously served as the Chicago press secretary for
Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...
She attacked alderman such as Edward M. Burke and Ed Vrdolyak as an "evil cabal" who ran the city's government. Her candidacy was seen as a longshot. Byrne also pledged that as mayor her cabinet would differ from Bilandic's. Byrne was endorsed by
Jesse Jackson Jesse Louis Jackson (Birth name#Maiden and married names, né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American Civil rights movements, civil rights activist, Politics of the United States, politician, and ordained Baptist minister. Beginning as a ...
. Byrne had lambasted Bilandic's government's slow response to the 1979 Chicago blizzard, criticism which was greatly credited with fueling her upset victory. Polls, up to the election day, had shown Bilandic in the lead. After the result, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' reported, However, ''The New York Times'' also noted that, despite running against the Democratic political machine's mayoral candidate, Byrne had expressed "little appetite for dismantling the organization."


Democratic primary results

, - ! colspan="5" rowspan="1" align="center" , Chicago Democratic Party Mayoral Primary, 1979 , - ! colspan="2" rowspan="1" align="left" , Candidate ! width="75" , Votes ! width="30" , % , - , style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" , , align="left" ,
Jane Byrne Jane Margaret Byrne (née Burke; May 24, 1933November 14, 2014) was an American politician who served as the 50th mayor of Chicago from April 16, 1979, until April 29, 1983. Prior to her tenure as mayor, Byrne served as Chicago's commissioner of ...
, , , - , style="color:inherit;background:#3333FF" , , align="left" , Michael A. Bilandic (incumbent) , , , - , colspan="2" align="left" , Majority , , , - , colspan="2" align="left" , Total , , , , -


=Democratic primary results by ward

= Byrne won a majority of the vote in 29 of the city's 50 wards, with Bilandic winning a majority in the remaining 21 wards. She swept the city's African-American wards, winning more than 2/3 of votes from them.


Republican primary

Wallace D. Johnson, an investment banker who was the chairman of the firm Howe, Barnes & Johnson Inc., won a landslide victory in the Republican primary over his sole opponent. The total number of votes cast in the Republican primary was 21,144, equal to roughly 2.6% the 809,043 votes cast in the Democratic primary. Johnson had, from 1970 through 1976, been a member of the
Chicago Transit Authority The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) is the operator of public transport, mass transit in Chicago, Illinois, United States, and some of its suburbs, including the trains of the Chicago "L" and List of Chicago Transit Authority bus routes, CTA bu ...
board, where he was involved in creating the Super Transfer and Culture Bus, and in 1973 helped to lay the groundwork for the creation of the Regional Transportation Authority.


Republican primary results

, - ! colspan="5" rowspan="1" align="center" , Chicago Republican Party Mayoral Primary, 1979 , - ! colspan="2" rowspan="1" align="left" , Candidate ! width="75" , Votes ! width="30" , % ! width="45" , +/- , - , style="color:inherit;background:#FF3333" , , align="left" , Wallace D. Johnson , , , N/A , - , style="color:inherit;background:#FF3333" , , align="left" , Raymond G. Wardingley , , , N/A , - , colspan="2" align="left" , Majority , , , N/A , - , colspan="2" align="left" , Total , , , , N/A , -


Socialist Workers nomination

The Socialist Workers Party nominated Andrew Pulley. Pulley was a steelworker that had been the party's vice presidential nominee in
1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, ...
.


General election

Democrat Byrne had the support of such
trade union A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...
s as the
Chicago Federation of Labor The Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) is an umbrella organization for Trade union, unions in Chicago, Illinois, US. It is a subordinate body of the AFL–CIO, and as of 2011 has about 320 affiliated member unions representing half a million union ...
and
United Auto Workers The United Auto Workers (UAW), fully named International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States (including Puerto Rico) and sou ...
. Republican nominee Johnson failed to attract much support. Socialist Workers Party nominee Pulley sought to convince voters that neither Democrats nor Republicans offered an adequate alternative for workers. He argued that, despite having support of trade unions, Byrne was "an anti-labor, anti-
strike Strike may refer to: People *Strike (surname) * Hobart Huson, author of several drug related books Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm * Airstrike, ...
candidate". During his campaign, he urged trade union members to organize to form a labor party in Chicago, urging them to run independent labor candidates in the following year's congressional elections. Pulley, himself a member of
United Steelworkers The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union, commonly known as the United Steelworkers (USW), is a general trade union with members across North America. Headqua ...
1066 at
U.S. Steel The United States Steel Corporation is an American steel company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It maintains production facilities at several additional locations in the U.S. and Central Europe. The company produces and sells steel products, ...
's
Gary Works The Gary Works is a major steel mill in Gary, Indiana, on the shore of Lake Michigan. For many years, the Gary Works was the world's largest steel mill, and it remains the largest integrated mill in North America. It is operated by U.S. Steel. ...
, argued, "If we don't act to establish a political party, the unions will be destroyed." Despite being its nominee nominee, Johnson's campaign received little organizational assistance from the Republican Party. Some aldermen (including Edward M. Burke and
Edward Vrdolyak Edward Robert Vrdolyak (; born December 28, 1937), also known as "Fast Eddie", is a former American politician and lawyer. He was a longtime Chicago alderman and the head of the Cook County Democratic Party until 1987 when he ran unsuccessfully ...
, both of whom were in 1979 considered to longtime political foes of Byrne) as well as some Democratic
committeemen In the United States, a political party committee is an organization, officially affiliated with a political party and registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), which raises and spends money for political campaigning. Political party c ...
were accused of trying to work against Byrne in order to decrease the level of the vote with which she would win election. Any such would have proved for naught, however, when the results came in.


General election results

With 82.05% of the vote, Byrne won the largest vote share in the history of Chicago mayoral elections (excluding the, invalid, April 1876 election). The election of Byrne (a resident of the city's North Side) made her the first mayor since 1933 not to hail from the
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neighborhood. The previous four mayors ( Edward J. Kelly, Martin Kennelly, Richard J. Daley, and Bilandic) all hailed from Bridgeport.


General election results by ward

Byrne won a majority of the vote in each of the city's 50 wards. In fact, Byrne won all but two of the city's 3,100 precincts (with the remaining two being carried by Johnson).


References

{{Mayors of Chicago, state=collapsed
1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
1979 Illinois elections 1979 in Chicago