Rep. Chuy Garcia, who has spent weeks on the receiving end of negative ads from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, debuted his first TV commercial Tuesday, while the incumbent is continuing to try to knock her fellow Democrat out of the Feb. 28 nonpartisan primary. Lightfoot herself recently made it clear she wants to face former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in an April runoff, and she’s betting she can get this matchup with another spot tying Garcia to two scandal-ridden men: former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried and former Illinois state House Speaker Michael Madigan.
We’ll start with Garcia’s opening ad, which, like the messaging coming from Lightfoot and the other major candidates, focuses on crime. The congressman tells the audience, “It’s time to get back to a safer Chicago now by getting more cops on our streets and illegal guns off of them,” before he calls for “[e]xpanding community-based violence prevention programs and tackling the root causes of crime by investing in left behind neighborhoods.” Politico says that Garcia, who had to briefly take down and edit the commercial because it initially featured him speaking to uniformed police officers, is spending $167,000 this week on commercials.
Campaign Action
Lightfoot, though, is continuing her pricey campaign against her main opponent with a new offering that shows an animated version of Garcia seated next to Bankman-Fried and Madigan as the narrator proclaims, “Chuy Garcia cozies up to crypto crooks, indicted politicians, and now his name has surfaced in the Madigan ComEd federal corruption investigation. He’d take us back to the bad old days, a rigged system that only works for the connected and corrupt.” The rest of the ad promotes Lightfoot as a reformer who is “delivering so we never go back.”
Madigan, whose nearly four-decade tenure as speaker of the state House came to an involuntary end two years ago, is scheduled to go on trial in March for racketeering and bribery. Among other things, Madigan and one of his associates, Michael McClain, are accused of working to place a Garcia ally named Juan Ochoa on the board of directors for the utility giant Commonwealth Edison. Multiple media outlets reported Friday that Garcia’s name came up in a secretly recorded 2019 call between Madigan and McClain about what prosecutors call an “unrelated matter.” Illinois Capitol Fax’s Rich Miller says the “unrelated matter” was about a PAC that Garcia and Ochoa were forming.
The Chicago Sun-Times writes that Madigan was recorded telling McClain, “Okay, so you see there’s a request from Ochoa, and Ochoa being Ochoa, the message reads, ‘Ochoa and Congressman Garcia.’ So I called Chuy, and Chuy really didn’t know anything about it.” Garcia has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and he quickly denied that he had any knowledge of Madigan’s machinations or had been contacted by investigators. Chicago Business' Greg Hinz also argued, “I’ve seen no proof Garcia did anything to advance the Ochoa appointment, just as his campaign told the Tribune.” Miller adds that the meeting Madigan tried to set up with Garcia never took place.
Lightfoot sees things differently, however, and her ad features a Chicago Tribune headline reading, “GARCIA REFERENCED IN FEDERAL CONSPIRACY DOCUMENTS.” The mayor was already working to connect Garcia to Madigan even before this story broke by highlighting how they’d supported one another’s political interests for years.
Lightfoot also has gone after the congressman over the $2,900 his House campaign received from Bankman-Fried last June, as well as the $151,000 that Bankman-Fried’s PAC spent on fliers for that uncontested 2022 primary. Garcia's spokesperson said he donated the $2,900 to charity and argued he "has been a strong advocate for the regulation of speculative industries, including the crypto industry."
Lightfoot’s offensive comes as AdImpact reports she spent a total of $3.5 million on ads through Tuesday, which was considerably more than the $2.2 million that her nearest opponent, wealthy perennial candidate Willie Wilson, deployed; Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson and Vallas have spent $1.6 million and $1.5 million so far, respectively.
But while Lightfoot has outpaced her foes on the airwaves, she didn’t have the largest war chest at the end of 2022. The deep-pocketed Wilson had about $4.1 million available compared to $1.8 million for both Vallas and Johnson; Lightfoot was just behind with $1.5 million as Garcia had $1.3 million available.
Politico, though, says the mayor took in $300,000 this week from a pair of backers after she released an internal from GBAO giving her the lead with 25% as Vallas edged out Garcia 22-18 for second. Lightfoot has made it clear that in April she wants to face Vallas, who accepted an endorsement from the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police and its Trump-supporting leader, though other polls have shown the incumbent in danger of not even making it to the second round.
