Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson officially announced his reelection bid this week, addressing his supporters at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center. As he looks toward Election Day, a mere five months away, he proudly listed his “accomplishments” as mayor of the Windy City.
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“Progress has been made, because this city is better, stronger, safer than what I inherited,” Johnson said at the event.
His pride in his work as Chicago’s steward is worth examining, as are the claims he made on the day of his announcement.
In fact, since Johnson’s tenure as mayor of the third-largest city in the United States, many Chicago residents — including this writer — would opine that Chicago has markedly declined.
One of the most prominent claims made by Johnson and overall city leadership is that in 2025, Chicago had the fewest murders recorded since 1965. This claim is substantiated by preliminary Chicago police data. However, this fails to account for the percentage of change in Chicago’s population.
In 1965, the population of Chicago was about 3.45 million, and the total number of murders was 395. Overall, this was 0.011 percent of the population. In comparison, in 2025, the population of Chicago was 2.73 million, and the total number of murders was 416, which is overall 0.015 percent of the population. Therefore, in terms of actual population context, crime is still worse under Johnson than it was in 1965.
Mayor Johnson truly goes above and beyond anyone’s expectations as a leftist Democrat in terms of big government and big spending. When he was elected mayor of Chicago in May 2023, the city’s total net debt outstanding was approximately $29.2 billion in addition to $37.2 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. One of the most harmful and cancerous elements of Chicago’s fiscal challenges has been its rising debt burden.
Despite this, instead of shrinking Chicago’s gigantic bureaucratic machine and recapturing funding to get the books closer to balanced, Johnson has since approved a $1.25 billion Housing and Economic Development Bond, an $830 million Infrastructure Improvement Bond, a $300 million Affordable Housing Allocation, a $42.5 million Grant Support Package, a $33 million Civic & Business Development Grant Package, among other spending items.
Notably, Johnson has deep and long-standing ties to the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). Johnson was previously a social studies teacher for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) as well as a union organizer and eventually a paid CTU staffer before securing the mayoral office. His alliance with the very powerful union has clearly swayed his decisions as mayor.
For the 2026-2027 academic year, Johnson approved a nearly $10 billion budget for CPS to bankroll yet another new teachers’ contract, relying on a record-setting $1 billion tax increment financing surplus as well as $150 million in increased education funding from the Illinois General Assembly that has not yet been approved.
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Johnson is, quite literally, counting his eggs before they hatch and writing checks the city might not be able to cash.
With all this spending, the students in CPS schools must be thriving. After all, the CTU has secured a renewed contract that estimates a total cost of $1.5 billion in raises for their teachers.
According to the Illinois Policy Institute, under updated state benchmarks, 43 percent of CPS students in grades three through eight met grade-level reading standards, and 27 percent met math standards.
Chicago is falling into a very dark and almost irrevocable path of extreme government bloat and spending, and Johnson is clearly not the mayor to shepherd the city out of it. Should the city have ever entrusted its finances to a man who maintained a $4,000 debt to the city from unpaid bills, fines, and parking tickets dating back to 2014? I think the answer is obvious.
Meanwhile, basic city services are not functioning. On the evening of September 5, 2026, a family member of mine, an infant, experienced a medical emergency. The infant’s mother called 911, as any mother would, and to her dismay and utter panic — no one picked up the phone. In place of a comforting, “911, What’s your emergency?” was just minutes of continued dial tone. I was called to try to help, so I also called 911… and it similarly rang for minutes on end without answer.
Thankfully, everyone is healthy and doing well, but what if it was a medical emergency where every moment counted? Where no answer from 911 literally meant the difference between life and death?
Is this the “progress” that has been made under Brandon Johnson’s stewardship?
Chicago has always been a beautiful and vibrant city; but decades of massive overspending, bloated budgets, and dishonest politicians have created enormous problems. Slowly, the inefficiencies and the dangers of city mismanagement will become increasingly apparent to residents and visitors.
Truthfully, I don’t know if Chicago can ever get its mojo back. But I know another term of Brandon Johnson as mayor is certainly not the solution.
Samantha Fillmore ([email protected]) is the Senior State Government Relations Manager for Heartland Impact, the advocacy arm of The Heartland Institute, a 40-year-old public policy think tank based in Schaumburg, Illinois.
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Image: Charles Edward Miller