2027 Chicago Mayor Race: Candidates, Dates, Money & News
Chicago’s next municipal election is February 23, 2027. If no mayoral candidate receives a majority, the top two advance to an April 6 runoff. S001 — source: Chicago Board of Election Commissioners (opens in a new tab) The public campaign field is already crowded, but nobody was certified for the ballot at this archive’s August 3 revision cutoff.
This page uses status categories deliberately. A public launch is not a completed filing; a filed committee is not necessarily a launch; petition activity is not an announcement; and none of those steps equals ballot certification.
Current field by objective evidence status
No record remains in active committee only after the direct-site review. No sourced withdrawn record was located. Nobody was ballot-certified at the cutoff because the filing, objection and certification process had not occurred. This is a documented field through the stated cutoff, not a claim that every person who may later circulate petitions, file papers or announce has already been identified.
Why NBC, ABC and CBS counts differ
CBS’s August 2 nine-name set is reproducible: Brewer, Cardenas, Giannoulias, Holberg, John Kelly, Mendoza, Nee, Quigley and Stanton. S003 — source: CBS News Chicago (opens in a new tab) NBC’s August 2 tracker says “at least 12” and lists those nine plus Pappas, Mark Su and Willie Wilson, but NBC’s own notes say Pappas had not formally launched and Wilson was circulating petitions while looking to launch. S180 — source: NBC Chicago Staff (opens in a new tab) Mark Su remains an NBC-attributed reported launch because no direct launch source was located. This archive assigns separate objective statuses rather than repeating NBC’s common heading.
ABC’s updated launch article calls Giannoulias the “10th declared candidate” but does not enumerate ten names. S011 — source: ABC7 Chicago (opens in a new tab) The cited records do not establish which name accounts for the difference from CBS’s nine. NBC’s “at least 12” is not a completeness statement: its tracker omits direct-source candidacy evidence for Carter-Walters, Brooks, Ma, Taylor and LoGalbo. The ILSBE disclosure search returned 14 finance-linked mayor records, but that database records campaign-disclosure relationships—not petition filing or ballot certification—and does not capture every direct candidacy statement. S182 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab)
Official election and ballot calendar
Mayoral nomination papers require at least 12,500 valid signatures from registered Chicago voters; the official calendar states no maximum. S001 — source: Chicago Board of Election Commissioners (opens in a new tab) Campaigns often collect more in anticipation of challenges, but that practice is not a separate legal threshold.
Campaign money: official Q2 records reconciled in this review
The table shows only the two Q2 committee reports fully reconciled against official Illinois State Board of Elections D-2 summaries. It is not a fieldwide financial comparison. Additional committee records are omitted until their official filings and every relevant amendment are opened and reconciled.
| Committee | Official ID / filing ID | Period | Beginning cash | Receipts | Expenditures | Transfers / loans | Debt | Ending cash | Amendment status / locator |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Citizens for Giannoulias | 19323 / QuQx4poVSz8mYbmErwT8bQ== S196 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) | Apr. 1–June 30, 2026 | $18,306,054.77 | $3,649,332.26 | $106,324.63 | $773,250.00 transfers in; $500.00 transfers out; $0 loans received/made | $2,282,150.00 | $21,849,062.40 | Official index did not label the reviewed filing amended; D-2 summary and Schedule C. S196 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) |
| Friends of Brandon Johnson | 34198 / QuQx4poVSz9DkGmKnzixrg== S199 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) | Apr. 1–June 30, 2026 | $813,125.19 | $108,621.77 | $290,437.62 | $5,500.00 transfers in; $13,000.00 transfers out; $0 loans received/made | $0.00 reported | $631,309.34 | Official index did not label the reviewed filing amended; D-2 summary and Schedule C. S199 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) |
Citizens for Giannoulias is a candidate-associated committee supporting simultaneous statewide and municipal political activity; its filing does not prove that every dollar was raised solely for the mayoral campaign. S012 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab)S196 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) Cash is capacity, not voter support, an endorsement or a forecast.
Polling and public-opinion evidence
ChicagoSpeaks, June 2026
NORC’s ChicagoSpeaks probability-panel survey included 1,194 Chicago adults, fielded June 15–23; its report gives an overall margin of sampling error of ±4.05 points. S016 — source: NORC/Mansueto Institute (opens in a new tab)
Read this correctly: the question measured excitement, not vote choice. “At least slightly excited” combines extremely, very, moderately and slightly excited. The public short report does not disclose the likely-voter subset’s size/screen, and the ±4.05 figure applies to the adult sample overall rather than necessarily to that subgroup. S016 — source: NORC/Mansueto Institute (opens in a new tab)
ChicagoSpeaks also reported 23.0% approval and 54.2% disapproval of Johnson’s job performance among adults, and 13.6% said they wanted him to run for another term while 57.2% said no. S016 — source: NORC/Mansueto Institute (opens in a new tab) Those are approval/reelection-interest measures, not a multi-candidate ballot.
Other available measures
- A Suffolk University/Chicago Tribune survey of 500 Chicago adults, fielded April 11–15 by live telephone in English and Spanish, measured favorability/name recognition—not vote intention. It reported a ±4.4-point margin. S017 — source: Suffolk University Political Research Center / Chicago Tribune CityView (opens in a new tab)
- A February 2025 M3 Strategies forced-choice likely-voter test used a field that is now stale and had a politically involved sponsor. Those limitations constrain its use as historical context. S018 — source: Capitol Fax / M3 Strategies memo (opens in a new tab)S019 — source: The TRiiBE (opens in a new tab)
- A September 2025 Victory Research two-person Johnson–Pappas hypothetical was commissioned by Pappas and is not a current multi-candidate test. S020 — source: Victory Research result shared by Frank Calabrese (opens in a new tab)
No current-field vote-intention poll from a non-candidate-sponsored source was located through the documented research cutoff. Prediction-market prices are not polls and do not belong in this table.
Initial issue comparison
Candidate platforms were uneven at the cutoff. The sourced comparison below includes only tracked people for whom the reviewed material supported at least a limited policy or governance summary. The second section explicitly accounts for every other tracked person. Placement in either section reflects the available sourced policy material, not an editorial judgment about viability, importance or likelihood of appearing on the ballot.
Sourced comparison where reviewed policy material was adequate
Tracked people without enough reviewed policy material for substantive comparison
Omission from the table above means the reviewed sources did not provide enough verified policy detail for a responsible comparison at the cutoff. It is not a ranking or assessment of candidacy.
| Tracked person | Objective status at cutoff | Policy-material finding |
|---|---|---|
| Johnny LoGalbo | publicly launched | The reviewed launch release and campaign site established candidacy; sufficiently detailed, verified policy material was not extracted for this comparison. S189 — source: Friends for LoGalbo (opens in a new tab)S190 — source: Friends for LoGalbo (opens in a new tab) |
| Mark Su | reported as launched by accountable news source | NBC supplied the only located candidacy classification; no direct campaign site or policy source was located. S180 — source: NBC Chicago Staff (opens in a new tab) |
| Danielle Carter-Walters | campaign site/direct public candidacy statement | The direct site and committee record established candidacy; reviewed policy material was insufficient for the comparison fields. S006 — source: Danni C for Mayor (opens in a new tab)S007 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab)S182 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) |
| LaTonia “Toni” Brooks | campaign site/direct public candidacy statement | The campaign statement and committee record established candidacy; reviewed policy material was insufficient for the comparison fields. S188 — source: Brooks for Chicago (opens in a new tab)S182 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) |
| Zoe Ma | campaign site/direct public candidacy statement | The direct site includes a platform, but this archive had not completed a source-reviewed policy summary by the cutoff. S185 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab)S186 — source: Zoe Ma for Mayor (opens in a new tab) |
| Jabari L. Taylor | campaign site/direct public candidacy statement | The direct statement and committee record established candidacy; reviewed policy material was insufficient for the comparison fields. S187 — source: Jabari for Chicago (opens in a new tab)S182 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) |
| Maria Pappas | intends to run | The reviewed sources established intent and a later planned launch, not a sufficiently reviewed mayoral policy platform. S191 — source: ABC7 Chicago Digital Team (opens in a new tab)S181 — source: Chicago Sun-Times (opens in a new tab) |
| Willie Wilson | petition activity only | The reviewed sources established petition activity and an active committee, not a current, sufficiently reviewed platform. S180 — source: NBC Chicago Staff (opens in a new tab)S183 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) |
| Brandon Johnson | petition activity only | The reviewed sources established incumbent status, petition activity and an active committee while the candidacy decision remained unresolved; no reelection platform was inferred. S180 — source: NBC Chicago Staff (opens in a new tab)S181 — source: Chicago Sun-Times (opens in a new tab)S184 — source: Illinois State Board of Elections (opens in a new tab) |
| Bill Conway | considering | The reviewed source established consideration only; no mayoral platform was inferred. S192 — source: Chicago Sun-Times (opens in a new tab) |
| Jesús “Chuy” García | declined | The reviewed source established that he would not run for office again; no 2027 mayoral platform applies. S025 — source: Associated Press (opens in a new tab) |
Endorsements and support
The cited direct evidence does not establish a full mayoral endorsement roster for Giannoulias as of the cutoff. The launch venue and trade-union presence signaled support; three aldermen were reported as signaling support, while two others attended. S009 — source: WTTW News (opens in a new tab) Those verbs must be preserved. A PAC contribution, T-shirt, attendance or older statewide endorsement is not automatically a formal 2027 mayoral endorsement.
Update history
Methodology note
publicly launched requires direct campaign launch evidence or a direct public launch statement corroborated by accountable reporting. campaign site/direct public candidacy statement records direct candidacy evidence without claiming a discrete launch. reported as launched by accountable news source is used only when an identified accountable publisher reports a launch but no direct campaign launch source was located; the publisher and limitation must appear next to the status. Committee and petition evidence remain separate. Finance comparisons use the same reporting period and retain loans/transfers. Polls are labeled by what they measure. Browse the original source library.