PICTURED L-R: Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III.
The results are in. Thousands of voters in Black wards voted in favor of Eileen O’Neill Burke for Cook County State’s Attorney. And thousands of voters in white wards cast their ballots for her Black opponent, Clayton Harris III.
A Crusader analysis from the Chicago Board of Elections shows that Burke took a chunk of the Black vote during Tuesday’s Democratic Primary Election held on March 19, 2024. Not to be outdone, Harris grabbed a chunk of the white vote from Burke.
While both candidates won the majority of wards in their racial group, Harris and Burke took nearly an equal share of the Hispanic vote.
It’s an election race that appealed to a race outside each candidate’s ethnic identity.
A Crusader analysis shows that Cook County State’s Attorney candidates Harris and Burke each crossed racial lines and ran away with a chunk of votes garnered from people who don’t look like them.
The result is a close race where so far Harris has failed to achieve a dominant win in any of Chicago’s 17 Black wards as Burke took nearly 30 percent of the Black vote in those wards. And despite her tough-on-crime message, Burke lost four white wards to Harris as he grabbed 36 percent of the white vote.
Election data show that while both candidates’ wards voted outside their ethnic group, they still picked up a healthy percentage of votes that kept them in the race.
According to a Crusader analysis of the latest election data, out of Chicago’s 50 wards, Harris won 27. He won all 17 Black wards, six Hispanic wards and four white wards. Harris, percentage-wise, did better in his ethnic group (72.37 percent) than Burke did in the white wards (63.9 percent).
Although Harris won a solid majority of Chicago’s rich Black electorate, he still couldn’t put his opponent away for the big win on Tuesday night.
That’s because Burke kept him from dominating in the Black wards as she took 27.60 percent of the Black vote. She won 23 wards, including 14 white wards, eight Hispanic wards and one Asian ward.
Percentage-wise, Burke won the Hispanic vote with 47.89 percent, the Asian vote by 68.29 percent and the white vote by 60.55 percent.
And like Harris, she still didn’t win the Democratic Primary Tuesday night despite Cook County elections data that show Burke beat Harris by 16,000 votes at polls in cities and towns outside of Chicago.
The Black vote has helped both candidates remain in the race. The 68,066 votes Harris received in the Black wards make up 46 percent of his total haul of 142,779. The 25,650 votes that came from the Black vote make up 18.77 percent of Burke’s haul of 136,643.
It’s a slugfest that left the two candidates locked in one of the tightest Cook County State’s Attorney’s races in recent memory.
The close race may signal a growing trend among Black voters who have grown tired of voting for Black candidates who don’t deliver on campaign promises and only show up in Black neighborhoods during election season.
Many Black residents are fed up with carjackings, shootings and robberies in Chicago. Crime once again became a campaign issue in Chicago, where downtown and affluent neighborhoods have also been hit with incidents.
Former Cook County President Todd Stroger on WVON 1690 said on Wednesday that the Cook County State’s Attorney’s race had become an extension of the mayoral race between Brandon Johnson and his anti-crime opponent Paul Vallas, who received support and endorsements from many Black political leaders and Black residents.
But during his campaign, Harris struggled to appeal to anti-crime voters as a Black candidate whose predecessor was painted as soft on crime. With crime hitting Black neighborhoods, many Black residents are seeking candidates who are tough on crime, regardless of their race.
One caller on WVON 1690 said she voted for Burke although she prosecuted a 10-year-old boy for a murder he did not commit.
“I don’t care. Most of these boys are doing the carjackings and robberies. Lock them all up,” she said.
Avalon Park resident Linda Hudson said she voted for Burke because of her background as a prosecutor and an appellate judge.
“I did my homework. In reading about her background, her years in court and his court experience and the fact that Toni Preckwinkle brought him in. I figured we already had a Foxx in the house, we didn’t need another one. Crime is running rampant everywhere, but especially in Chicago. I heard him say that he was going to build off some things Kim Foxx had in place, but we need someone who’s going to be tough on crime.”
Election data so far show that among the 17 Black wards that voted for Harris, he did not dominate or win by 80 percent in any of those wards. Harris did win by 70 percent or more in 14 of them.
His biggest win came in the 8th ward, where he won by over 79 percent. But in the 3rd and 27th wards, which include large populations of white residents, Harris received just over 59 percent of the vote, while Burke grabbed 40.6 percent and 40.54 percent, respectively.
A similar result occurred in 2019 during the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk race, where winner Iris Martinez took a chunk of votes in many Black wards against former Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin, who lost the race.
On the flip side, in the white wards on the North Side, Harris did the same as Burke, grabbing four white wards (1st, 46th, 48th and 49th), and losing 14th to Burke. However, in 10 wards that he lost, Harris grabbed at least 25 percent of the white vote in each of them. In three of those wards, Harris won at least 38 percent of the vote.
