Recently, Democratic Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson seemingly blamed supporters of former President Donald Trump when speaking about a failed referendum he had supported. During a press conference, Johnson claimed there were “38,000” Chicago residents who voted for Trump and contributed to the referendum’s failure.
This week, Chicago residents voted against the “Bring Chicago Home” referendum, which touted $100 million in additional revenue from a tax hike on large real estate purchases to address the homelessness crisis in the Windy City. However, voters rejected the proposal by over a seven-point margin, equating to approximately 22,000 votes.
“It’s also not lost on me, I think there were 38,000 Republicans that showed up and voted for Donald Trump, or something like that, in Chicago,” Johnson said. “If we’re trying to draw some conclusions, and you all want some other, you know, analytics you might want to discover, that might be something to look into because there’s— I’ll just say there’s a good chance that that played a part in this referendum.”
“So the same people who want to see Donald Trump become [president again], those are the same voters who voted for him, are the same voters where, you look at there were more of those, they were concentrated there,” he added, lamenting the conservative presence in the city.
However, data from the Chicago Board of Election Commissioner’s website showed that there were roughly 37,000 Republican voters who voted during Tuesday’s primary. Roughly 29,000 of these individuals voted for Trump, garnering nearly 79% support.
Reports on the referendum detail that the measure would have increased the city’s flat 0.75% tax on property purchases in excess of $1 million. Furthermore, the tax proposal would have lowered the tax on properties less than $1 million to 0.6%.
“Properties purchased at less than $1 million would see their rate cut to 0.6%. Properties purchased between $1 million and $1.5 million would have a 0.6% tax on the first $999,999 of the sale price and 2% on the rest. Sales above $1.5 million would pay 0.6% on the first $999,999, 2% on the next $500,000, and 3% on the rest,” according to the Chicago Tribune.
The Democratic mayor further rebuked criticism that his administration didn’t have a sufficient plan in place to deploy the additional tax revenue had the referendum passed. Johnson claimed a “community process” would have determined how the funds would be allocated.
“We have one in five Black children particularly who experience homelessness, you got 68,000 people who are unhoused, building more affordable housing, making sure that we have pathways to affordable rent in this city, multi-unit buildings,” he stated. “Again, where the neighborhoods who are most impacted by this issue, they knew exactly what they were voting for. That’s why I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that where there are more yeses is where there’s a greater concentration of those who are unhoused.”
“So, the question that I would ask is, the people who are most impacted understood the assignment. The question is, the people who are not as impacted, how do we make sure that they understand the assignment even if they’re not impacted? Or the point of pain is is where we should actually lead. And the people of Chicago, where that point of pain is quite potent, they’re very clear about what this was about,” Johnson said.
Featured image credit: U.S. DOD photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brandon_Johnson_230527-A-OH563-4600_(1).jpg
