Brandon Johnson, a union organizer and former teacher, was elected mayor of Chicago

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On Tuesday, a big win for the party’s progressive wing as the country’s third-largest city grapples with major crime and financial challenges.

Johnson, a Cook County Commissioner backed by the Chicago Teachers Union, won a close race over former Chicago Schools CEO Paul Vallas, who was backed by the police union. Johnson, 47, will succeed Lori Lightfoot, the first black woman and first openly gay person to become mayor of the city.

Lightfoot became the first Chicago mayor in 40 years to lose her reelection when she finished third in a tight contest in February. The top two voters, Vallas and Johnson, advanced to Tuesday’s runoff after no candidate managed to get more than 50% to win outright.

Johnson’s win was the apex of a remarkable trajectory for a candidate little known when he entered the race. He rose to the top of the field with organizing and financial help from the politically influential Chicago Teachers Union and high-profile endorsements from progressive senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Sanders showed up at a rally for Johnson in the closing days of the race.

It was a momentous win for progressive organizations like the teachers’ union, with Johnson winning the highest office of any active teacher’s union in recent history, leaders say. It comes as groups like Our Revolution, a powerful progressive advocacy organization, push for more offices in local and state offices, including in the upcoming mayoral elections in Philadelphia and elsewhere.

The contest exposed longstanding tensions among Democrats, with Johnson and his supporters labeling Vallas, who was endorsed by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the chamber’s second-highest Democrat, as too conservative and a Republican in disguise.

One of the biggest disputes between Johnson and Vallas was how to tackle crime. Like many U.S. cities, Chicago saw a surge in violent crime during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a 25-year high of 797 homicides in 2021, though numbers fell last year and the city has a lower homicide rate than others in the Midwest, like as Saint Louis.

Vallas, 69, said he would hire hundreds more police officers, while Johnson said he had no intention of reducing the number of officers, but said the current police system is not working. Johnson was forced to defend past statements in support of abandoning the police force, something he insisted he would not do as mayor.

Instead, he said, he planned to allocate more money to areas like mental health and youth work.

Johnson also released a plan calling for $800 million in new taxes, which he said would be imposed on wealthy people and businesses, while property taxes would be frozen. Vallas, who received strong support from the business community, said the tax plan would be disastrous for Chicago’s economy.