With CTU ally Mayor Brandon Johnson in charge, voters reject several union-backed school board candidates

As early returns in Tuesday’s first school board election signaled an underwhelming performance by the Chicago Teachers Union, its President Stacy Davis Gates addressed a roomful of supporters with a fiery message.

“I don’t care how powerful they try to make us in disunity,” Davis Gates said. “The little engine that could expanded democracy at a time when fascism is on the rise.”

The scrappy David-and-Goliath messaging belied some of the criticism the CTU has gotten for becoming too powerful since its chosen mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson won the 2023 runoff, seating an ally of the firebrand union in the Chicago mayor’s seat for the first time in modern history. But a year-and-a-half later, voters in the city’s first-ever round of school board elections appeared to be rejecting most of the CTU’s slate of candidates, signaling that the union’s rising political influence is facing roadblocks.

The transition to the city’s first elected school board, a longtime demand of CTU’s, came at a fraught time for the union and Johnson’s education agenda. An ongoing feud between the mayor and Chicago Public Schools CEO Pedro Martinez over district finances spilled into the public eye earlier this fall and quickly blew up the local races, with opponents of the CTU hoping to frame their races as a referendum on Johnson.

On Wednesday, those critics were ready to pounce.

“This is a report card on Brandon Johnson,” Ald. Gil Villegas, 36th, said. “You saw CTU-backed candidates that were bankrolled to the tunes of millions of dollars ultimately lose. It was a rebuke on the mayor as well as CTU.”

Seven contests have been called by The Associated Press. Of those, three were won by the CTU, though one of them was an uncontested race. The other four districts saw the CTU-backed candidate defeated either by charter school-funded opponents or independents, according to unofficial results.

Three more close races are expected to be called by the weekend. Among those, the union’s picks were falling behind in two but pulling slightly ahead in the third, according to unofficial results.

“There’s a feeling out here that CTU has become too powerful because of having won the mayor’s race,” Delmarie Cobb, a Chicago-based political strategist, said. “I’m seeing this visceral pushback, and so I think what you saw with the results is an example of that.”

But Cobb challenged the notion that Johnson’s 2023 victory ever solidified CTU’s clout: “It’s not like they just overnight won the mayor’s race. They worked at it and kept doing it. But now the backlash is that you have a mayor in there who comes out of the CTU.”

In total, more than $8 million was spent on November’s school board elections. The union had spent at least $1.7 million in direct contributions to candidates, while the pro-charter and school choice lobby injected about $3 million.

Throughout CTU’s election night watch party, speakers hit at the latter interests who emerged victorious in three races they poured money into: District 3 with Carlos Rivas, District 4 with Ellen Rosenfeld, and District 8 with Angel Gutierrez. The other districts where the CTU faltered were won by independent candidates.

“Billionaires spent a lot of money to get three out of 21,” Davis Gates said, counting the 11 mayoral appointed seats under next year’s hybrid model in the total size of the school board. “I keep telling you, it’s cumulative. It keeps getting bigger and it keeps growing. And we want more people for this group project.”

In District 4, one of the most closely watched races, victor Rosenfeld pulled ahead of five other candidates, receiving 42% of votes, with CTU’s candidate Karen Zaccor next at 29%.

Rosenfeld said the CTU’s ad campaigns aligning her with GOP President-elect Donald Trump “backfired” because voters were “turned off.”

“I think (CTU) underestimated the intelligence of the constituents of Chicago,” Rosenfeld said. “Political games were, unfortunately, a big part of what happened here. So much money was spent on the spreading of negativity and lies.”

Just up north in District 2, CTU-endorsed candidate Ebony DeBerry, who prevailed over businessman and self-funded candidate Bruce Leon 42% to 21%, said it was the charter-backed campaigns that dealt in negativity.

“There was so much politics, and there was so much money, and there was so much rhetoric,” DeBerry said. “But I won in my district because I had representation from many community groups and organizations and like-minded individuals and organizations that have been doing the work of improving our city and our schools for a long time.”

The tense atmosphere surrounding CPS began this summer when Johnson butted heads with Martinez, a Lightfoot holdover, over the issue of a disputed $175 million pension payment for non-teacher staffers at CPS and a $300 million high-interest loan. The pension payment historically had been paid by the city until Lightfoot shifted the burden to the school district. The loan was pitched by Johnson’s team as a means to pay for the $175 million obligation plus the start of the next CTU contract.

Martinez refused, and Johnson’s handpicked school board sided with the CEO in its July budget vote. Johnson then asked for Martinez’s resignation, according to the CEO, and was rebuffed. After that, the school board resigned en masse, signaling further reluctance to follow the mayor’s agenda but also clearing the way for him to replace them with new allies.

Only the Chicago Board of Education has the power to fire a CEO. Last week, Johnson’s second school board president, the Rev. Mitchell L. Johnson, resigned after coming under fire for a string of antisemitic, sexist and conspiratorial social media posts. Martinez remains the CEO, for now.

Political strategist Tom Bowen cautioned against assuming the motivations of voters who sided for or against CTU, however, in these hyperlocal, downballot races.

Under the elected school board bill, Johnson retains control of the body by one seat next year until the full switch in 2027, possibly lowering the stakes this time around for voters who aren’t as tuned into CPS news.

“It probably didn’t help that the entire school board resigned, had to be replaced, and then the president of the school board had to be replaced during this election season,” Bowen said. “But it’s really hard to draw a conclusion from the outcome of the election for the very first time these offices have ever been on the ballot.”

In District 1, for example, the CTU-endorsed candidate herself has publicly broken with the union on the campaign trail, further complicating the nuance of what her victory means for the labor group’s political standing.

Jennifer Custer, who was narrowly leading the race with incomplete results as of Wednesday, said some of her stances don’t align with “CTU’s philosophy.” In her campaign, she said she advocated for the preservation of selective enrollment, charter and magnet schools while also building up neighborhood schools, while the union has been pushing to move away from school choice.

And Custer said she was uncomfortable with the negative ads CTU ran on her behalf.

“It’s an avenue I really wanted to avoid going down. And I can’t say my campaign is completely innocent of it, but I certainly did not want to go that route,” Custer said. “I believe in being kind to one another. Kindness is free.”