2 weeks Ago By Chip Mitchell | WBEZ
In the race for Cook County’s top prosecutor, Democrat Eileen O’Neill Burke was declared the winner after taking an early and commanding lead in the race over Republican opponent Bob Fioretti. Just before 9 p.m.
, the Associated Press called the race for O’Neill Burke, who had amassed 64.8% of the vote to Fioretti’s 30.8%, with a little more than 59% of the total expected vote tallied.
O’Neill Burke has been the favorite to win in deep blue Cook County, which hasn’t elected a Republican for state’s attorney in more than three decades. As the results streamed in, more than 200 supporters of O’Neill Burke surged toward the front of Moe’s Cantina, a Mexican restaurant and tavern in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, expecting their candidate to declare an easy victory early in the evening. About a hundred supporters of Republican Cook County State’s Attorney candidate Bob Fioretti gathered at the Billy Goat Tavern on Chicago’s West Side.
Earlier in the night, Fioretti told supporters he was optimistic of his chances. “We saw over 2,000 voters this afternoon and talked to many of the voters. I heard one thing: They want change.
They want a new direction. They want people who are serious about putting an end to crime,” Fioretti said. O’Neill Burke’s primary pitch to voters has been her depth of experience in the justice system, including working as a prosecutor, private attorney, judge and an appellate court justice.
“I’ve seen the criminal justice system from every angle you can see it from, and I know what works and what doesn’t work,” Burke said in an interview during the primary. She told the Sun-Times earlier this year that she stepped away from the bench to run because she saw a justice system that “just isn’t working right now.” O’Neill Burke said she saw crime holding back Chicago at a time when she felt the city should be booming.
She promised to tackle retail thefts by charging cases more aggressively and to use a new statewide law restricting assault weapons to go after illegal guns. But despite tough on crime talking points, O’Neill Burke also said she supported the progressive criminal justice reforms in the state’s landmark SAFE-T Act, which among other things eliminated cash bail in Illinois. Throughout the primary and general election, she tried to largely stake out a center left lane that would appeal to a wide range of voters — both those who are concerned about crime and those calling for more reforms.
But with her years of experience also came criticism of her work from the left, specifically her prosecution in the ‘90s of a 10-year-old Black boy for the murder of an elderly white woman who was later exonerated by DNA evidence. The prosecution relied heavily on the boy’s false confession to a police detective that the appellate court later found was coercive. The case led civil rights icon Jesse Jackson to endorse Fioretti last month and encourage Black voters to split their ballots and vote for a Republican for state’s attorney.
If Fioretti fails to start picking up votes, it will be his seventh election loss in a row. First elected in 2007 as 2nd Ward alderperson, he was reelected in 2011 — both times by a significant margin over his closest opponent in crowded races. But when his ward was redistricted, he decided not to run for reelection and has struggled to win over voters since.
Fioretti ran for mayor in 2015, losing to Rahm Emanuel and finishing second to last. In 2016, he ran for a state senate seat and lost to Patricia Van Pelt in the Democratic primary. He suffered another loss two years later to Toni Preckwinkle in the Democratic primary for county board president.
Both times he lost by more than 20 points. Fioretti came near last in a crowded mayoral election that saw Lori Lightfoot win in a runoff with Preckwinkle. His last attempt to win a Democratic primary resulted in a bruising defeat to incumbent State’s Attorney Kim Foxx.
He came in last place. In 2022, Fioretti switched parties to run as a Republican against Preckwinkle for county board president, but lost again having secured less than a third of the vote. Fioretti told the Sun-Times last month that he switched parties not because he found himself losing, but because the Democratic party had left him behind.
Fioretti said he hoped to appeal to voters who felt similarly disenchanted with Democratic rule in Cook County..
