* It’s just a poll, and we’ll know the real numbers soon enough, but Victory Research has now done four head-to-heads on the Vallas vs. Johnson race…

2/12-15: Vallas 46, Johnson 33
3/6-9: Vallas 45, Johnson 39
3/20-23: Vallas 46, Johnson 44
3/29-31: Vallas 50, Johnson 45

If this poll is right, then the undecideds are breaking toward Vallas and he’s finally moved above that 45-46 level he’d been stuck at for weeks.

If you compare the last two polls and look at where the candidates have moved at or beyond the overall 3.2 percent margin of error in the final poll (even though the MoE for these subsets are larger), you’ll see Vallas has moved up a bit with both men and women. He’s now equal with Johnson among women and leading Johnson by 13 big points among men.

Vallas’ numbers also increased by 5 points in Lakefront wards, and the poll found him ahead there by 9 points. Vallas moved up 4 points among Latinos and led by 7 in the latest survey.

Johnson was leading among 18-30s by 20, but they don’t vote in large numbers. Vallas was ahead by 11 points among seniors, and they do vote in large numbers.

Of those who hadn’t yet voted, Vallas led by 7 points. The two were tied among those who’d voted already.

* Crain’s…

Meanwhile, though Johnson pulled in another $125,000 over the weekend from the American Federation of Teachers union, United Working Families and state Sen. Mattie Hunter, D-Chicago, Vallas, yet again, pulled in a lot more. Vallas’ weekend haul topped $410,000, including another $100,000 from Koch Foods CEO Joe Grendys (the chicken processing mogul already had donated $200,000), $50,000 from airplane maintenance exec Neil Book and $25,000 from Merchandise Mart Properties.

The ad disparity on Chicago TV is simply breathtaking.

* Instead of paying these bills long ago, or immediately correcting the problem, Johnson initially brushed it all off and then flip-flopped, thereby extending the story and bringing in other news media outlets which had ignored the original piece, like the Tribune…

Chicago mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson paid off more than $3,000 in water and sewer bills to the city after facing criticism over his handling of his personal finances.

The controversy erupted in recent days after it emerged that Johnson owed $3,357.04 in unpaid water and sewer bills and more than $400 for unpaid parking tickets to the city.

* I have no idea why the Johnson campaign thinks that a two-minute ad featuring out-of-state talking heads is gonna move any kind of needle…

The Brandon Johnson campaign has taken the extraordinary step of airing a two-minute television ad on broadcast and cable across Chicago on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. The documentary-style ad––titled “Trail of Destruction”––features parents, policy experts, and community leaders from Philadelphia and New Orleans warning Chicagoans of Paul Vallas’ disastrous record.

* Not good…

Brandon Johnson disputed a question asking him to expand on this quote that’s in a Guardian headline: “That’s not a quote from me … You know, look, I know there are individuals that want to divide the city of Chicago. We're running to unite the city of Chicago.” https://t.co/NQT42qDN41

— Alice Yin (@byaliceyin) April 2, 2023

* Pat Quinn isn’t really a “centrist,” but claiming that Tabares and Martinez are progressives is truly a laugh riot…

Today on the campaign trail: Paul Vallas is hosting a rally with “progressive” leaders that’s actually a bunch of centrists and moderates pic.twitter.com/6XUVF1WNzC

— Gregory Pratt (@royalpratt) April 2, 2023

…Adding… Like I said…

They also discussed how Madigan intended to have Silvana Tabares appointed as the 23rd Ward's new City Council member. The call was in April 2018.

— Jon Seidel (@SeidelContent) April 3, 2023

* Former CTU leaders for Vallas…

We didn’t have a single teacher strike when I led Chicago Public Schools, teacher pensions were fully funded and teacher salaries went up. That’s because we had a collaborative working relationship with the teachers union based on mutual respect. pic.twitter.com/lCwUc7ZOzy

— Paul Vallas (@PaulVallas) April 3, 2023

* Vallas campaign…

Vallas for Mayor Public Events for April 3

Paul Vallas returns to his childhood community, joins Senator Dick Durbin, Congressman Bobby Rush & others for GOTV events across Chicago

Chicago, IL – Mayoral Candidate Paul Vallas returns to his childhood neighborhood Monday morning with a visit to a longtime donut shop in Chicago’s Roseland community where he was born and raised. Vallas will also join U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, retired Congressman Bobby Rush, mayoral candidate Ja’Mal Green and others for a series of GOTV events.

* Digital ad or simply a YouTube video?…

The Brandon Johnson campaign today released a new digital ad exposing Paul Vallas repeatedly insulting President Joe Biden and criticizing the Biden Administration on conservative talk radio. The final digital ad before election day comes as Paul Vallas is still under fire for calling the impeachment of Donald Trump a “witch hunt.”

* Candidates generally have protected speech in their ads. Third party advertisers generally do not. Press release…

On Friday, March 31, 2023 the Chicago Republican Party served cease and desist demand letters on multiple local television stations over their broadcast of an advertisement by the Brandon Johnson Campaign that claimed that Paul Vallas had been “endorsed” by the Chicago GOP. […]

Boulton noted that no broadcaster had given a response to the letter despite the passage of 48 hours. “Perhaps they will respond to the Federal Communications Commission,” Boulton speculated.

* Isabel’s roundup…

* Sun-Times | Johnson, Vallas tour South Side churches in final weekend campaign push before mayoral runoff: Johnson and Vallas both focused largely on African American wards where Mayor Lori Lightfoot performed well in the general election, as the runoff contenders vie for the nearly 17% of voter support that went to the outgoing mayor Feb. 28 — and the 10% or more Chicagoans who remain undecided, according to most polls.

* Tribune | Brandon Johnson on the campaign trail: Banter, invocations of Black forebears — and promises of a Chicago brimming in ‘vibrancy’: Johnson then launched into his stump speech centered on the single-word theme of his campaign: “investment.” He vowed access to fully funded neighborhood schools, affordable housing, new senior facilities, reliable transportation, a healthy environment and good jobs.

* Tribune | Paul Vallas on the campaign trail: ‘Wonkish’ spiels, boundless anecdotes — and a laser focus on crime: But soon, the focus turned to an issue that’s caused the Chicago mayoral candidate to visibly wince on the campaign trail: repeated attacks from rival Brandon Johnson claiming that Vallas opposes the teaching of Black history and has palled around with right-wing extremists. “It’s frustrating when somebody calls you a racist,” he said, unprompted. “Racists don’t do 55% minority contractors. Racists don’t go to New Orleans when 110 of the 120 schools have been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and were uninhabitable.”

* Sun-Times Editorial Board | The next mayor has a chance to revitalize public education in Chicago: Lobby in Springfield for full funding of the state’s Evidence-Based Formula. The EBF ties school funding directly to the costs of educational practices that research has proven will improve achievement. Created by legislators in fiscal year 2018, it has funneled $1.6 billion more to public schools since then, most of it going to the neediest schools across Illinois, and has provided money for property tax relief as well. Problem is, the state has yet to fully fund the EBF; it’s underfunded by $3.6 billion.

* The Hill | Chicago mayor’s race reaches fever pitch in final days: While some strategists caution against looking at municipal elections strictly through a national lens, many observers are watching the Chicago mayor’s race to gauge the mood of the electorate as Democrats prepare to face another presidential cycle.

* Politico | ‘A dangerous force’: Chicago mayor’s race tests teachers union clout: In Brandon Johnson — a progressive county commissioner, former CTU organizer and teacher whose soaring oratory has been a hallmark of rallies and contract fights — the union’s critics see a takeover of the city’s politics.

* NYT | Chicagoans Are Picking a Mayor. Here’s What Matters From 4 Key Wards.: The residents of the 19th Ward on the Far Southwest Side of Chicago know how the rest of the city sees them: a white, conservative bubble of police officers and firefighters, Irish pubs and Catholic churches that is a relic of the old Chicago political machine. “There is that history,” said Clare Duggan, a Democratic political organizer who is a resident and native of the Beverly neighborhood. “But we have a dichotomy in the 19th Ward.”

* Tribune | Chicago mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson pays off more than $3,000 in water bill debts to the city: Initially, the Johnson campaign released a statement noting the bills were “on a previously established payment plan, and are on schedule to be fully resolved before (he) takes office as our next mayor.” […] “Like a lot of working families, a few years ago, my family got behind on our water bills and established a payment plan. We’re not alone — there’s $421 million in unpaid water bills right now because for too long our city has leaned on rate hikes and fees to combat the budget deficit Paul contributed to,” Johnson said. “I don’t want this to be a distraction in the crucial final days of this race, so we’ve tightened our belt and decided to pay it off now. I have zero debt with the city.”

* New Yorker | Paul Vallas’s Cops-and-Crime Campaign to Run Chicago: Early on, Vallas seized on the violence that has spiked in Chicago, and across the country, during the pandemic. In a recent poll, sixty-three per cent of Chicagoans said that they feel unsafe in daily life. Vallas, who credits the four police officers in his family for inspiring his public-safety policies, has pledged to fill the department’s seventeen hundred vacancies. “He’s meeting people where they are,” Aviva Bowen, a political strategist, told me. “They’re afraid.” At the same time, he needs to draw in voters who want major reforms in a department that is currently operating under a federal consent decree and has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to settle complaints of brutality. It’s a tough needle to thread. He’s advancing a lower-key community-policing model and pledging “zero tolerance” for officers who violate the law or the Constitution, while also welcoming the endorsement of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, whose leader, John Catanzara, has posted on Facebook that Muslims “all deserve a bullet.”

* Monroe Anderson | What makes Paul Vallas the “Democrat of choice” for powerful Republicans?: If Vallas’s newly hired police turn out to be a bunch of Officer Friendlies, treating Black men on the West Side like they treat white men in Lincoln Park, that would be a step in the right direction. On the other hand, if the officers become an occupying army in the Black community, sprinkled with some Jon Burge and Jason Van Dyke types, then we can get ready for more tortured false confessions and more mass protests over trigger-happy cops using Black men for target practice.

* Chalkbeat | Comparing Chicago’s 2023 mayoral candidates on 5 key education issues: Johnson wants to overhaul the district’s current student-based budgeting system, which he argues has been harmful to schools. Basing school budgetson enrollment restricts individual campuses from giving students a full offering of programs and support, he’s said in the campaign trail. Instead, he favors an approach that fully funds school staff — including social workers, librarians, and nurses — regardless of enrollment. […] Vallas wants to get more funding directly to individual schools and out of central office. On the campaign trail, he has argued that only 60% of the district’s budget is currently making it to schools. Vallas favors a system that lets Local Schools Councils, elected members at each school, decide how funds are spent in their respective buildings. He also wants state funds such as Title I directly to assigned schools.

* Block Club | Election Day ‘Get-Out-The-Vote’ Efforts Could Be Deciding Factor In Nail-Biter Mayor’s Race, Experts Say: “A final push to get out the vote is going to make the difference,” Dominguez said. “There’s just such a large number of undecideds, and both candidates need to find ways to elevate enthusiasm amongst their base.” A neck-and-neck race with more than 200,000 vote-by-mail ballots out means there may not be a clear winner by election night, said Max Bever, Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesperson. Experts similarly warned of that possibility ahead of the Feb. 28 election, and multiple aldermanic results weren’t determined until mid-March.

* Sun-Times | 6th, 21st Ward candidates discuss future of South Side ahead of runoff: Time to ‘resurrect dreams of residents’: Two South Side City Council races put a pair of neighborhood pastors, a retired firefighter and a community activist into runoff contests in wards where longtime alderpersons are exiting their posts.

* Block Club | Chicagoans Should Vote Early As Tornadoes Possible, Severe Storms Expected Election Day, Officials Say: Tuesday’s election is expected to be highly consequential: Chicagoans will vote on the city’s next mayor, choosing between the ideologically divided Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas. Fourteen aldermanic races are also up for grabs in the runoff election. But potentially dangerous storms are also expected Tuesday, especially later in the day: There could be damaging wind, hail and tornadoes, according to the National Weather Service.

* Tribune | As city’s most active voting precinct, Cook County inmates vote with help from jail and advocates: Voting at the Cook County Jail has risen sharply since the jail added pioneering in-person polling places in 2020. Incarcerated voters say they feel more heard as voting rights groups work to educate and register inmates, and politicians are taking note of the increasingly involved voters.

* WTTW | Chicago Public Schools Teacher Charged With Stalking Mayor Lori Lightfoot: Garrett McLinn was also charged with disorderly conduct and five counts of resisting a police officer, according to police. The arrest took place on the Logan Square block where Lightfoot lives. Sources close to Lightfoot say members of the mayor’s security detail confronted McLinn as he was causing a disruption outside of her home, and that the confrontation escalated. McLinn has appeared outside the mayor’s house on at least one other occasion, sources said.

* Crain’s | Why the City Council structure gives rise to corruption: “When people understandably and rationally assume that actors in city government are acting in their own interests and not the interests of the people they serve, that makes it harder to conduct responsible government,” says Deborah Witzburg, Chicago’s inspector general. “Chicago has not earned the benefit of any doubt. We have earned ourselves a world in which people profoundly distrust city government, and so when things go wrong, there is gaping space for worst assumptions.”