- Al Podgorski / Sun-Times Media
- To topple Mayor Rahm Emanuel, his challengers need to keep him under 50 percent in the first round of voting.
Now that Alderman Bob Fioretti has announced he’s running for mayor, it’s a good time to remind you—once again—that we have a runoff system for electing mayors in Chicago.
I understand why so many Chicagoans are confused.
No, the lesson most people learned was to make sure that, from that point forward, no one race would ever risk splitting its racial base by going into an election with more candidates than the other race.
Instead, we have a general election in February in which candidates run without any party label. If no candidate emerges with more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers go at it in a winner-take-all runoff.
If so, Mayor Rahm won’t get the 50-percent-plus-one vote he needs to win outright. And we go to the runoff.
In other words, too many candidates will confuse the Chicago electorate—which, let’s face it, is not all that bright to begin with—and thus help Rahm.
