1 J.B. Pritzker
ILLINOIS GOVERNOR
Pritzker isn’t just the king of Illinois. When crises hit, he’s shown that he runs the show in Chicago, too. During the pandemic, he preempted local officials, including Mayor Lightfoot, to close restaurants and schools. More recently, when Mayor Johnson attempted to establish a refugee camp in Brighton Park, the state shut it down, saying the land was contaminated. Point, Pritzker. Meanwhile, he has consolidated his power over the state Democratic Party. In 2022, he successfully pushed to get an ally elected party chair. That same year, he gave $5.5 million to Democratic state candidates, helping maintain his party’s supermajorities in both legislative chambers—and guaranteeing their loyalty. He’s used his control over state government to make Illinois a bastion of progressivism. He has aggressively expanded abortion rights, entrenching a post-Roe haven of access. He approved an assault weapons ban that survived a legal challenge, beating back the gun lobby. He also helped attract the Democratic National Convention to Chicago by promising to raise enough money so the $80 million to $100 million event wouldn’t leave the party in debt. Can the governor go higher? His Think Big America PAC is supporting abortion-rights ballot measures around the country, he has become a key surrogate for President Biden’s reelection campaign. And with his political influence stronger than ever and his progressive policy successes mounting, even the notion of President Pritzker doesn’t seem all that far-fetched.
2 Brandon Johnson
CHICAGO MAYOR
After his upset victory over Paul Vallas in April, Johnson set out to build the most progressive administration Chicago has ever seen. He hasn’t hesitated to shove aside anyone who gets in the way. When Alderperson Scott Waguespack, a Lori Lightfoot supporter, tried to reorganize the City Council without the mayor’s input, Johnson dumped him from the finance committee chairmanship, replacing him with an ally. And in August, the mayor fired the popular public health commissioner Allison Arwady, because she disagreed with his plan to reopen public-run mental health clinics. His first legislative victory was a measure to pay tipped servers the full minimum wage, which passed over the initial objections of the restaurant lobby thanks to the City Council coalition of socialists and alderpersons who owe him their committee chairmanships. But Johnson didn’t get that done by brute force alone: He crafted a compromise giving restaurants five years to phase out the tipped minimum wage, a deal that got the Illinois Restaurant Association on board. He also persuaded the council to place his Bring Chicago Home ordinance, which would increase taxes on million-dollar real estate sales to raise funds to combat homelessness, on this month’s ballot, despite opposition from real estate interests. Get used to Johnson. Unlike Lightfoot, he enjoys being mayor.
3 Toni Preckwinkle
COOK COUNTY BOARD PRESIDENT
Yes, she failed as a mayoral candidate because of her lack of charisma and connections to Ed Burke, and her soda tax imploded spectacularly, but the power of Preckwinkle, who also chairs the Cook County Democratic Party, is as kingmaker. She has succeeded in placing her protégés all over local government. She helped Brandon Johnson, in his first foray into politics, win a county board seat against incumbent Richard Boykin (a bit of revenge for his voting against her tax), and she endorsed Johnson during the mayoral runoff, giving him crucial establishment support. In her own 4th Ward, she engineered the appointment of Alderperson Sophia King; when King then ran for mayor, she went around introducing King’s eventual replacement, Lamont Robinson, as her preferred candidate. She is also State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s political godmother. A longtime opponent of cash bail, she campaigned successfully for the Pretrial Fairness Act, which eliminated the practice throughout Illinois.
4 Stacy Davis Gates
CHICAGO TEACHERS UNION PRESIDENT
No one else is as responsible for Brandon Johnson’s ascendancy as Davis Gates. Johnson began his mayoral campaign armed with the CTU’s endorsement, and the ground game of the union’s political arm, United Working Families, carried him into office. But Davis Gates is a force in her own right. She leads the most powerful teachers’ union in the country, and the contract she helped fight for in 2019 (when she was vice president) secured
