Her last name helped, but her first name won the election.
Prosecutor Anita Alvarez came out of nowhere to win a six-way Democratic primary race for Cook County States Attorney—which is tantamount winning in November, when she will become the first woman and the first Hispanic to hold the job. (No, kiddies, Republican Tony Peraica has absolutely no chance of coming close this fall.)
She won with a small but solid base in the Latino communities, a push from some Machine committeemen and a huge women’s vote—a pattern that applied in both the city and suburbs. The female vote was stimulated largely by her self-financed, pitch-perfect, gender-oriented ad campaign.
But the hidden story involves the breakup of the—until now—solid black voting bloc that was expected to give Ald. Howard Brookins at least 30 and likely 35–40 percent of the total vote. Instead, he got only 22.11 percent, while Alvarez squeaked by the white Machine guy, Ald. Tom Allen with 25.86 percent compared to his 24.77 percent—a 10,000-vote margin out of 917,335 votes cast. Reformer Larry Suffredin came in third with 22.11 percent.
Brookins had bad publicity because of several financial and real estate problems, but defections of black women to Alvarez drained nearly 15 percent from African American wards while another 16-plus percent went to Suffredin, who heavily advertised his endorsement from Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.
Historically, serious black candidates since Harold Washington—such as former Justice William Cousins or Clerk of the Court Dorothy Brown—carry the 20 African American wards with 75–90 percent of the vote. Brookins averaged only 55 percent in those wards.
Look at it this way: If Forrest Claypool had received the same African American vote two years ago as Suffredin received, he would have defeated John Stroger for the presidency of the Cook county board.
The massive women’s vote was evident up and down the ballot, throughout the county, among all ethnic groups, sweeping women (both highly qualified and totally unqualified) into judgeships, legislative posts and ward committeemanships, regardless of their other endorsements or lack thereof. In African American wards, however, race trumped gender in the presidential contest with Barack Obama averaging 90-plus percent of the vote over what’s-her-name.
Alvarez swept all the dominantly Latino wards and others with significant Hispanic populations. She received covert help from Anglo Committeemen Ed Burke (14th) and Dick Mell (33rd)—and possibly even from John Daley, whose 11th ward she narrowly carried over white-guy Allen.
The Latino vote, however, remains disproportionately small. With some 26 percent of the population, their actual vote totals barely crack double digits. The average black ward, for example, cast nearly three times the votes of the typical Latino ward. (Extreme example: the solidly Latino 12th cast a total of 4,115 votes, compared to 21,894 in Brookins’s home 21st, where he managed to get only 61.3 percent for himself while Obama got 95.66 percent.)
Nevertheless, the election portends an increasing importance for Latinos—who also gave their pluralities to Hillary Clinton.
The reformers, who did poorly across the board, could see some better prospects with female candidates, black or Latina, and the building of multiethnic coalitions. The independent victory of Circuit Court Clerk Brown in the Democratic primary four years ago could provide a model. Jackson Jr. is key.
As to Alvarez, we have a mixed bag. She won without most of the Machine behind her, but they will envelop her in November. There is no question she is a competent professional prosecutor, but her association with the incumbent administration—which is soft on public corruption and police misconduct—makes her suspect to many progressives and those engaged in issues such as police torture.
Now that she made it more or less on her own, we’ll see next year if her well-advertised hints of independence and reform hold up when she’s the boss.
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Don Rose is an expert on Chicago politics, a veteran independent strategist and a political analyst for The Chicago Daily Observer.
Dubious about So Called Experts says:
This race should be characterized as "Experts Debunked." Mr. Rose isn't doing anything to change that. By claiming that Alvarez was covertly assisted by Alds. Burke or Mell or Daley, he reveals that he still is completely in the dark. John Daley and Mike Madigan stayed neutral in the race. Alds. Mell and Burke had their colleague, Tom Allen on their palmcards on election day. Perhaps Mr. Rose and the rest of the so called experts are just incapable of wrapping their expert minds around the idea that Alvarez won because she was the best candidate in the race, the most independent, the only woman and the only hispanic. It is impossible to credit only one or even two factors for Alvarez's win. It was a perfect storm for her. Its as simple as that.
Juan says:
"the solidly Latino 12th cast a total of 4,115 votes"
This is a critical distinction. If Latinos are ineligible to vote or if they choose not to vote, where is the power of the group as a voting bloc? If it were not for the Voting Rights Act and the complicity of the Democratic Central Committe slatemakers, several elected Latino politicians would not be in office.