CHICAGO — Businessman Willie Wilson will run for Chicago mayor in the 2023 election, adding a second declared candidate to a growing field of potential challengers to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, he said Monday.
“The city’s in horrible condition. So we got to change,” Wilson told the Tribune, vowing to “spend whatever it takes” to get elected.
Announcing his candidacy at a news conference in the ritzy downtown high rise where he lives, Wilson promised to focus on crime and education.
“I don’t need to run for mayor to get a paycheck. My wanting to do this is to serve communities,” Wilson said. “We want to bring all races, creeds and colors together.”
Wilson, who is wealthy, said he isn’t beholden to campaign contributors — and announced that he will donate $5 million to his campaign fund.
He will accept small campaign contributions but doesn’t want large donations, Wilson said as he unveiled his campaign alongside a couple dozen Black and Latino pastors, including one who defied the stay at home order during the pandemic, demonstrating his strong church-going base.
Lightfoot has not formally declared her campaign for reelection but is widely expected to seek a second term and has strongly hinted she will run. In January, for instance, she told the Tribune her work isn’t done “and I’m yielding to no one.”
Her re-election bid could be complicated by Wilson’s campaign. As the field of candidates grows, it will be harder for any individual candidate to achieve more than 50% of the vote and avoid a runoff.
In the first round of voting in 2019, Lightfoot emerged first from a 14 candidate field with less than 20% of the vote, much of it from white wards on the lakefront. This time, Lightfoot’s coalition is expected to rely more heavily on Black voters, but Wilson could cut into her support.
Although Wilson failed to make the runoff in 2015 or 2019, he won Chicago’s Black vote in the last election’s first round, and his support for Lightfoot in the 2019 runoff helped her crush Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in a landslide.
Wilson called his 2019 runoff endorsement of Lightfoot “a hell of a mistake.” But he also said he would not “get involved in talking about her negatively” because “people want to see how I’m going to fix the city.”
“Let the people make that judgment,” Wilson said.
Regarding crime — likely to be a central issue in the race — Wilson said: “I would not be one to say I can fix crime by itself. No way.” He said he’ll support better relations between police and the community and seek to “get to the root of the problem.”
“You can’t ever stop crime by locking people up and putting people in jail,” Wilson said.
Wilson, 73, brings a rags-to-riches success story to the race.
Born in Gilbert, Louisiana, Wilson dropped out of school, worked as a sharecropper and picked vegetables before moving north.
As a younger man, Wilson worked his way up the fast food world by mopping floors and flipping burgers at McDonald’s. He later developed a friendship with legendary McDonald’s chief Ray Kroc and ran several franchises.
Wilson hosted “Singsation,” a TV program showcasing gospel talent, for more than three decades and is head of a medical supplies company. In that role, Wilson has also clashed with Lightfoot.
Lightfoot and Wilson exchanged words in spring 2020 after she accused him of requesting millions of dollars from the city in upfront cash to help buy protective masks.
In response, Wilson denied wanting the money in cash and said the city didn’t get back to him about his proposal.
Lightfoot and Wilson also have clashed over his recent gas giveaways, which have led to speculation that he is upping his profile for a mayoral run. After Wilson donated $1.2 million in gas to city and suburban residents, Lightfoot announced a planned $7.5 million giveaway — while subtly throwing shade on his efforts by saying residents won’t need to get up at 4 a.m. or stand in long lines.
Wilson also disputed that his charitable giving is political, saying he’s been giving away money to the needy since 1996.
At his campaign announcement, Wilson also pledged to continue the handouts, even though critics say he is doing so for political advantage. Wilson rebutted that by saying he gives not only in Chicago but also around the country, including recent giveaways for people in New Orleans after Hurricane Ida.
“I wasn’t running for mayor of New Orleans,” Wilson said.
He also said a decision is coming soon about whether there will be another gas giveaway. And if he will not be allowed to do so in Chicago, he will have drivers meet him in Indiana for free gas, he said: “It touched me the first time we did the $250,000. I had no idea it was that devastating.”
Wilson finished fourth out of 14 candidates in the February 2019 election. He pulled in nearly 11% of the vote, notching victories in 13 wards on the city’s South and West sides and taking much of the Black vote.
Wilson also donated $100,000 to himself in that race, triggering a provision in state campaign finance law that lifts restrictions on campaign donations for candidates.
Although he has run for mayor, president and senator, Wilson has never won elected office. He’s also never been appointed to any high-level government posts, two drawbacks that he will need to address.
His candidacies have often been unorthodox as he developed his own unique form of campaigning that centered on gospel music performances and religious sermons rather than stump speeches. During the lead-up to the 2019 election, Wilson often would offer a prayer at candidate forums.
He has been embraced by thousands of Black voters who see him as a noble figure, in part, because he reached financial success with only a seventh grade education and because he has refused to conform to mainstream standards.
Asked Monday what will be the difference between this campaign and his previous runs for mayor, Wilson said he’s been to more Latino and white churches and has learned more about the struggles faced by all Chicago residents. He said he’ll spend more money than during previous runs and expand his efforts to meet with a broader cross-section of Chicago residents.
“I think what makes me a better person is getting out in the community and finding out the sensitivity of the community,” Wilson said. “... The color of your skin to me, it doesn’t matter. I’m African American, I’m white American, I’m Latino American. I’m all of those American. I’m not going to let anyone say otherwise.”
He added: “We’re going to win because the Lord said we’re going to win.”
He also criticized Lightfoot for ticketing churches that defied the stay-at=home order during COVID-19, saying he supports religious freedom.
While Wilson says he’s a Democrat, he has said he voted for President Donald Trump and many of his views align with conservative positions. His support of some Republicans could limit his broader appeal in an overwhelmingly blue city.
In a previous story about Wilson’s appeal to Black voters, the Rev. Ira Acree told the Tribune that while former President Barack Obama represented someone who succeeded by earning all the highly respected, mainstream accolades such as an Ivy League education, Wilson, by contrast, got there with grit.
“Willie’s story is the story of Black people in America and Black people in Chicago,” Acree said. “Willie is a product of the Jim Crow South. He should not have survived all that he went through — but he did.”
Wilson’s political career has not been without controversy.
In 2018, a political reform group complained Wilson violated state election law when he gave away more than $200,000 at a South Side church, but he was cleared by state officials who found that he did not violate state law despite mistakenly broadcasting his charitable foundation’s money giveaway on a campaign Facebook page, among other issues.
State officials also noted he has been giving away his own money for decades, long before he became a political candidate.
Chicago Ald. Raymond Lopez declared a mayoral run last week, largely focused on reducing crime. Other potential candidates include Local Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara, whose union has fought bitterly against Lightfoot’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate; U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley; former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas; state Reps. Kam Buckner and La Shawn Ford; Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Stacy Davis Gates; former city Building Commissioner Judy Frydland; Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson; and City Council members Roderick Sawyer and Brian Hopkins.
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