Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is facing an uphill battle in her bid for re-election — and while she primarily blames racism for her plight, she also blames TIME Magazine for failing to elevate her the way they did her predecessor.
While Lightfoot conceded to POLITICO’s Jonathan Martin that she had certainly made some mistakes during her time as mayor, she claimed that the real issue was the fact that the people were quicker to pass judgement on a black woman.
“Of course, you can’t have lived through what we lived through and say I did everything perfect. We made mistakes,” she said, pivoting to bring former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s TIME Magazine spread into the conversation.
“I remember Rahm Emanuel appearing on the cover of Time magazine, the headline was basically like: ‘Tough guy for Chicago.’ No woman or woman of color is ever going to get that headline,” she complained.
Lightfoot, the city’s first black female lesbian mayor, made a similar complaint during another interview with The New Yorker. “I’m a black woman and, let’s not forget, some folks frankly don’t support us in leadership roles,” she said.
She faces a slate of eight challengers in Tuesday’s election — the top two of whom will face each other in a run-off election — and there are some who don’t believe she’ll even make it to the run-off.
“Personally, I don’t [think she can pull off this race], but I’ve been wrong before as the polls have in the past,” local radio host Ray Stevens told “Fox & Friends First.”
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“Chicago has a rampant crime problem, and not only is it in Chicago, but its [sic] has reached the collar counties … crime, crime, crime is going to be the issue in this election and, personally, what I’m hearing from my constituents, from listeners, is that it will come down to [Paul] Vallas [or] Brandon Johnson,” Stevens said, arguing that substantive issues were taking precedence over Lightfoot’s grievances about race and gender.