North Cook News

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) made a veiled attack on Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas through his campaign spokesperson Natalie Edelstein, according to a HuffPost article published on Tuesday.

“Throughout the pandemic, Governor Pritzker spent every day fighting to save people’s lives and livelihoods,” Edelstein said in a statement to HuffPost. “He did it by following the advice of the nation’s best virologists and epidemiologists, many of whom are at Illinois’s world-class research institutions and hospitals. Leadership requires making tough choices and not pandering to the loudest voices driven by politics. The next mayor of Chicago may be called upon to lead in a similar type of emergency and residents deserve to know if their next Mayor will listen to experts or instead to right-wing talk show hosts when making decisions about people’s lives.”

Edelstein appeared to be referring to Vallas' tendency to appear on right-wing radio shows and embrace traditionally conservative views. In one radio interview, he disparaged Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as Pritzker, although Vallas campaign spokesperson Phil Swibinski claimed that Vallas respects the Governor's leadership and voted for him in the 2022 general election.

In 2021, Vallas, who is also the former CEO of Chicago Public Schools, argued on a conservative talk-radio show that Pritzker and current Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot heavily relied on executive orders to implement public health policy because it "gives them the ability to act like dictators" by working around their respective legislatures. Vallas has also been critical of many of Pritzker's other policies, including an election-year tax cut that he called an attempt to "fool" voters, a reduction in a tax credit for low-income private school parents, and his measured approach to reopening schools and lifting mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pritzker has officially remained neutral in the Chicago mayoral runoff, which is set to be decided on April 4. Vallas, a centrist Democrat and charter-school proponent backed by Chicago's main police union, is competing against progressive Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson. Vallas has run on a message of restoring public safety and has proposed filling Chicago's police backlog of over one thousand people and reviving community policing without raising any taxes.