Chicago's mayoral primary: Racial or ethnic politics?

By RICHARD DAY

Black voters in Chicago seem to be experiencing one of the truisms of politics: "It's easier to share the poverty than the wealth." With the giant gone, Harold Washington's legacy has not been reclaimed in a coherent, recognizable form. Regardless of anyone's opinion of Harold Washington, it appears that he alone was able to stir the passions of the voters, which translated into turnout and victory.

The Chicago mayoral Democratic primary of 1989 was remarkable for many important reasons, and one was the overall turnout decline of 17 percent compared to 1983. This drop-off is due to many different factors. Most important was that Harold Washington was not on the ballot. With Washington on the ballot the overall turnout was 77 percent in 1983 and 75 percent in 1987; without him in 1989, the overall turnout was 60 percent.

Turnout can be a meaningless statistic, however, if it drops or rises equally among the major blocs of voters in an election district. In fact, the strong increase in turnout in 1983 was not a significant factor in electing Washington since that increase occurred with all groups of voters across the city.

In the 1989 primary, however, turnout did vary by region, and we can infer, by race. Examining the contribution made by the different regions of Chicago to the total vote in 1987 and 1989 shows the dropoff in the city's predominately black wards (see table 1).

In the 1989 primary, in which 932,258 votes were cast, the turnout differential represented a swing of 4 percent, or 37,290 votes. This is what gave Richard M. Daley his relatively comfortable margin. Polls are not good at predicting turnout, and our preelection survey, using historical turnout proportions, had Daley at 52 percent.

Unlike Washington, Eugene Sawyer did not benefit from a united black community. Tim Evans, who was not running in the primary but as an independent mayoral candidate in the general election, and his supporters did not endorse or work for Sawyer's nomination in the primary.

Given normal turnout proportions, the primary contest would have been closer than our accurate exit poll call of 56 percent for Daley and 43 percent for Sawyer with 1 percent going to other candidates. Unlike Harold Washington, however. Sawyer was unable to attract enough white or Hispanic votes. For a black candidate to win a two-person race in Chicago, he or she needs virtually all of the black vote, about 18 percent of the white vote and nearly half of the Hispanic vote.

The keys to the Washington victories were his virtually unanimous support in the black community, his ability to attract white and Hispanic votes and the fact that he ran against two strong white candidates in 1983 (Daley and Jane Byrne) and against a weakened Byrne in 1987.

Sawyer held none of these keys. He was unable to attract appreciable numbers of nonblack voters and he was running against a very strong Rich Daley. In addition, the division in the black community between the supporters of Evans and of Sawyer depressed turnout.

Our polling for Channel 7 (ABC in Chicago) showed that Sawyer was everyone's second choice. While Evans enjoyed much higher esteem than Sawyer among blacks, he was actually disliked overall because of the very low opinion that white voters held of him (see table 2).

Our exit poll showed that Sawyer got 95 percent of the black vote but only 15 percent of the Hispanic and 7 percent of the

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white vote. Daley received 92 percent of the white vote, 3 percent of the black vote and 85 percent of the Hispanic vote.

This leads to the other important point raised by the primary: With the ascendance of blacks into positions of considerable influence, the media began to see the rise of racial or racist politics. Certainly the best way to predict how someone will vote for mayor is to know his or her race. Is this racist?

A politician's job is largely to weave a dream in which the average voter will be more empowered, more proud and emotionally better off by voting for that candidate. It should come as no surprise, then, that black voters can more easily identify with a black politician than with a white politician. When you ask a black voter why he or she is voting for their black choice in a contest, the responses are usually "because he understands me" or "because he will be more fair."

In days past, when virtually all the local candidates were white, the game was called ethnic politics. Those who were responsible for creating a ticket recognized that people of a certain ethnic background would support one of their own. In fact, having ethnic balance on the ticket is still considered wise.

White voters, who are somewhat more removed from the need to be race conscious since nearly all candidates for office are white, will explain their vote for a white candidate in ways more aligned with civics books: "because he has more experience" or "because he will hold the line on taxes."

Certainly, our open-ended questions show clear race-based voting: "because he is black," "because he is white." This, according to most pundits, is a bad thing. But when an unknown Irish name consistently will get more votes than other unknowns without Irish names, no one makes much of it.

What we are experiencing in Chicago is ethnic voting, with a little vitriol thrown in. Without the opportunities to have blacks compete for offices usually held by whites, however, the chances to vote for a candidate on matters other than race will not occur.

Richard Day has his own survey research firm, Richard Day Research, in Evanston. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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