Susana Mendoza Challenges Brandon Johnson for Mayor

Is this the woman who will save Chicago? Susana Mendoza, a sensible Democrat with an impressive resume, has run her department so frugally she returned cash to the city every year. Now she wants to lead the troubled Windy City.

With the first round of voting in the Chicago mayoral race less than six months away, this candidate enjoys plenty of support as she hopes to take control. Susana Mendoza is 54 and launched her bid for mayor in June. She is a top contender in what is expected to be a race with a deep pool of candidates.

Mendoza, a Democrat, hopes to unseat Mayor Brandon Johnson. He has yet to announce whether he will seek reelection after abysmal approval ratings surfaced. A gold-standard poll by the University of Chicago's Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation found that just 13.6 percent of Chicagoans want Johnson to run again. Meanwhile, 58 percent said they are not excited about another campaign by the mayor, according to CBS News.

That same poll found that 47 percent of voters were enthusiastic about Mendoza's candidacy. This trails only Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, who received support from 52 percent of respondents. Mendoza's promising start comes after a decade as Illinois state comptroller. During this time she made a splash with budget cuts in her first few years in office.

Upon taking office as state comptroller, Mendoza cut the office's budget by 10 percent and kept it there for six years. This saved taxpayers more than $18.6 million. Her campaign website states this included returning $4.3 million in unused appropriations to the state treasury. She paid down $17 billion in unpaid bills and delivered the fastest vendor payment cycle in history.

Mendoza helped grow the state's Rainy Day Fund from $48,000 to $2.5 billion. She also delivered 10 credit-rating upgrades on her watch. Chicago has struggled fiscally while Johnson has been mayor. On Tuesday, he announced a plan to refinance about half a billion dollars in city debt.

These actions combined can close the shortfall while avoiding any layoffs, Johnson said. However, Mendoza labeled the mayor a blizzard of incompetence. She noted that Chicago has tossed mayors out of office for blizzards, corruption, and incompetence. Right now, Chicago is experiencing a Blizzard of Incompetence. We deserve better. Not just a little better, much better.

Mendoza said her top priorities, if elected, would be addressing Chicago's financial crisis and the city's public safety crisis. She previously ran for mayor in 2019 but finished fifth in the election won by Lori Lightfoot. During that mayoral race, she was criticized for her relationship with embattled aldermen Ed Burke and Danny Solis.

Burke was convicted in 2023 on racketeering, bribery and extortion charges for abusing his position as an alderman. Solis worked with authorities as an informant to help convict Burke after facing his own bribery charge. Mendoza gave away donations she received from Burke but was still criticized by her opponents.

Not just a little better, much better. Burke endorsed Mendoza in two previous elections, and his wife, former Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke, officiated Mendoza's wedding. This connection has drawn fire from critics who see it as a conflict of interest given the disgraced alderman's history.

Mendoza addressed her ties to the controversial politician during an interview on Chicago Tonight. She argued that any elected official serving in the last two decades would have worked with him, comparing their relationship to how she collaborated with Barack Obama. I have photos with him, so it's really ridiculous to even bring that up. Her defense highlights a specific reality of city politics where past interactions often get ignored by voters today.

She also pointed out that most Chicagoans do not know who he is anymore. If you go talk to any Chicagoan out on the streets, they're going to tell you they don't even know who that is for the most part. But they do care about the violence in their neighborhoods, and they care about the fact that we're hemorrhaging money and charging them more in property taxes. The focus must shift away from old scandals toward these pressing local issues.

I will be the mayor who focuses on the real issues that people care about because nobody really cares about that nonsense, she added. This stance aims to rally support against a field where nine other candidates are running alongside her. Mendoza finished with just nine percent of the vote in the 14-candidate race for this specific position.

Giannoulias stands ready as her greatest rival according to CBS News reports. He leads in campaign fundraising, has high name recognition and is supported by trade unions. This dynamic creates a challenging path forward for the current administration seeking re-election. He is running for reelection as Illinois secretary of state in November 2026 while simultaneously seeking election as mayor in 2027. Chicago's next mayoral election is set for February 23, 2027.