Brandon Johnson
Mayor of Chicago since 2023. Candidate for mayor of Chicago, on the ballot February 23, 2027.
Mayor since May 2023, seeking a second term. A former CPS teacher, Chicago Teachers Union organizer, and Cook County commissioner; 50, lives in Austin, married with three children, one of ten siblings. Filed 33,000 signatures on October 23.
Campaign website (brandonforchicago.com)
Campaign money
- Committee: Friends of Brandon Johnson
- Raised: $123K
- Spent: $858K
- Cash on hand: $379K
- Raised July 1 to Sept. 30, 2026; spent Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 2026. Source
Money figures are each committee's quarterly reports to the Illinois State Board of Elections: spent is total expenditures from January 1 to September 30, 2026 (or since the committee formed), cash is funds available on September 30.
Support
13.6% of likely voters in the ChicagoSpeaks poll, Sept. 2026 (Mansueto Institute / NORC). 16 points of support per $1 million spent.
What they would do
- Make Chicago the safest and most affordable big city in the country by investing in working people.
We are going to be the safest, most affordable big city in America by investing in working people.
(NBC Chicago, Oct. 2026) - Reopen every closed public school and every closed mental health clinic.
We will not be satisfied until every mental health clinic is reopened.
(Reelection launch speech, Sept. 13, 2026 (The TRiiBE)) - Keep building housing with city money instead of waiting on Washington.
We have built a model for creating housing that does not wait on Washington to save us.
(Reelection launch speech, Sept. 13, 2026 (The TRiiBE)) - Points to his executive order creating an Office of Gun Violence Prevention as the model for driving violence down.
It's my executive order that created an Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
(Reelection launch speech, Sept. 13, 2026 (The TRiiBE))
AI summary
Main points
Safety and affordability: A second term built on investing in working people, with the goal of the safest, most affordable big city in America.
Schools and clinics: Reopen every closed public school and every closed mental health clinic, and keep sending TIF surplus money to the schools.
Housing and violence: Continue the city-funded housing programs of his first term and the Office of Gun Violence Prevention he created.
Next to the others
Only Johnson: Runs on a record in the office; everyone else runs against it.
Taxes: Johnson wants the ultra-rich to pay more; Giannoulias, Holberg, Kitover, and Kelly would hold or lower property taxes, and Quigley calls raising taxes the last option.
Mental health: Johnson and Quigley would reopen the neighborhood clinics.
On money
Says the city should not balance its budget on working people and that the very rich should pay more in taxes; counts the TIF surplus sent to the public schools as his way of finding money.
We will not be satisfied until the ultra-rich finally pay their fair share in taxes.
(ABC7 Chicago, Sept. 13, 2026)When times get hard, we do not balance the budget off the backs of working people.
(Reelection launch speech, Sept. 13, 2026 (The TRiiBE))
Pizza
No position on record.
Also on the record
- The first mayor from the West Side in nearly a century, and an all-conference defensive lineman at Elgin High. (news.wttw.com)
- Opened his reelection speech with a joke that he would hurry because it was already as long as a City Council meeting. (thetriibe.com)
Compiled from public sources: