Cooking Up an Historic Victory

By: Jeff Kelly Lowenstein, Cristina Aguirre and Frances MoffettTake one dash of staunch support in Latino wards and suburban townships, add a dose of steady performance throughout the rest of Cook County and wait several hours before declaring victory.

Career prosecutor Anita Alvarez followed that recipe in her triumph over a crowded field in the tightly contested Democratic primary for Cook County State’s Attorney.

“We think she appealed to a broad range of voters,” Alvarez spokeswoman Sally Daley said. “She captured the broad base of appeal [which] … a lot of people had underestimated.”

Alvarez’s victory was the first for that position by a Latina, and she fared best in eight Chicago wards and two suburban townships with large Latino populations. But her victory was also powered by a steady performance in many of the city’s 50 wards and the county’s 30 suburban townships, including areas where Latinos do not have a significant presence, according to an analysis of the final vote results by The Chicago Reporter.

Alvarez was the top vote getter in 23 of the county’s 80 wards and townships, slightly more than 38th Ward Alderman Tom Allen and 21st Ward Alderman Howard B. Brookins Jr. who each captured 21. In addition to winning the city’s 11 majority-Latino wards and the heavily Latino townships of Berwyn and Cicero, Alvarez also won two majority-white wards and six majority-white townships, including the Schaumburg and Barrington townships where Latinos make up less than 10 percent of the population.

Alvarez even squeaked out a narrow victory over Allen in the racially mixed 11th Ward, the Democratic Party machine’s power base where Allen was expected to do well.

Sylvia Puente, director of the Center for the Metropolitan Chicago Initiative of the University of Notre Dame’s Institute of Latino Studies, said multiple aspects of Alvarez’s victory impressed her.

“I think what is so amazingly impressive about Anita Alvarez’s victory is that she did it without traditional machine-backed support; she did it as an independent, as a woman and as a Latina without a lot of money,” Puente said. “She did it on the substance, without being a politician. It’s symbolic of the growth and maturity of the Latino electorate that we can have someone like her win such an important post.”

But even when she didn’t finish first, Alvarez finished strong in most places. She received at least 20 percent of the vote in 62 of the county’s 80 wards and townships.

By contrast, Allen, Alvarez’s closest competitor, received more than 20 percent of the vote in 51 wards and townships. Allen had the strongest showing of any candidate in the suburbs, capturing 12 townships. In the city, Allen won nine wards, including the Southwest Side’s 19th and 23rd wards and seven North Side and Northwest Side wards near his political base in the 38th Ward.

“Alvarez was a very strong candidate, very capable and qualified and deserving of her election victory,” said U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who cited Alvarez’s television ads as playing a significant role in her victory. “She ran a textbook campaign in a race crowded with men.”

Jackson’s backing of third-place finisher, Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin, who is white, and the presence of defense lawyer Tommy H. Brewer, an African American, may have diverted votes that might have otherwise gone to Brookins, the leading African American candidate in the race.

Suffredin earned more than 20 percent of the vote in just 37 wards and townships. He was the leading vote getter in nine wards and six suburban townships. His strongest showings came in the New Trier, Niles and Evanston townships and the 49th Ward—all areas he represents as the 13th District Cook County Commissioner—and five lakefront wards stretching from the North Shore to Rogers Park. But Suffredin also captured the 2nd and 27th wards, two predominantly black wards.

Jackson said he thought Suffredin, who is white, would be able to raise money and build a coalition between different sides of the city, while Brookins appealed primarily to the black community.

Suffredin and Brewer received a combined total of more than 62,000 votes in Chicago’s 20 black wards and an additional 33,145 in the six suburban townships with a significant black presence. Brookins received a total of 171,263 votes, or about 71,500 less than Alvarez.

Brookins’ campaign had no traction outside of black wards and townships with a large black presence; he received 90 percent of his votes from those areas. But he garnered less than 5 percent of the votes in more than half of the 80 wards and townships in the county.

Brookins spokesman John Davis said the election results mean that the black community lost an opportunity to address race issues that have troubled the Chicago Police Department. As an alderman, Brookins has consistently argued for stronger measures to root out police abuse.

“We lost a very big opportunity to correct years of injustice and abuse,” Davis said. “It will be very interesting to see how Alvarez will handle this issue going forward.

”We will be holding her feet to the fire to make sure she lives up to her word,” Davis said.

Jackson said Alvarez is up to the task and disputed the idea that black people are the only ones qualified to tackle these questions.

“I don’t believe that African Americans are the only people in this country who can speak on racial injustice,” he said. “I believe Alvarez is capable and qualified … It’s an assumption that only African Americans can speak on these issues and that’s an assumption that I don’t accept.”