Runoff Election Gives Way To 11th Hour Political Theatre

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Apr 6, 2015 4:00PM

Chicago is seeing an increase of eleventh hour campaign drama as the heated mayoral runoff election enters its final days, and some welcome the slapstick comedy relief.

A supporter of mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia zealously stood her ground against a presumed Rahm Emanuel campaign worker, trying with limited success to film a Chuy press conference in Logan Square Friday. The whole scene, complete with a Marx Brothers-esque face-off in which the Chuy supporter blocks the camera’s every move with her hands, was caught on video and posted to Youtube Sunday.

The video’s description suggests that the stalwart camera woman is a campaign “tracker” hired to monitor the opposition.

“Yeah, we are not going to comment on this one,” an Emanuel spokesperson told the Sun-Times. Representatives from Garcia’s campaign also declined to comment to news outlet.

Since the runoff began, Cook County commissioner Garcia has faced a barrage of negative attack ads and polls show that the mayor has pulled ahead for an almost twenty-point lead (albeit with a significant contingent of voters choosing “undecided” in the poll).

On a day-long campaign tour around Chicago over Easter Sunday, Garcia predicted for reporters that “working people from all over Chicagoland,” would be turning out for him on election day, according to the Chicago Tribune.

More than 142,000 voters had cast their ballots by Saturday, when early voting ended, the Tribune reported—up from about 90,000 early votes in the general election earlier this year.

But Rahm, who has raised close to eight times the campaign funds that Chuy has netted over the course of election, offered a moment of contrition in his latest TV spot, which began airing last week: "Chicago's a great city, but we can be even better,” he says in the ad. “And yeah, I hear ya, so can I."