Race, always an issue in Chicago politics, was a key factor behind creating runoff for mayor

CHICAGO — Chicago’s April election between Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson features candidates with some of the starkest political differences in a head-to-head matchup since the city started having mayoral runoffs more than two decades ago.

When the law that made Chicago’s mayoral elections nonpartisan was passed, many of the city’s top Black political leaders feared it would all but guarantee Chicago’s mayors would be white. And for many years that was the case — though it isn’t clear how much of an impact moving away from traditional partisan elections had on the end result. Mayor Richard M. Daley easily won reelection three times, and Rahm Emanuel won in 2011 without needing