Mayor Brandon Johnson leads the pack of prospective 2027 challengers among Chicago’s own public employees, but that lead comes with an asterisk: 64% of those same workers still view him unfavorably. A new poll of 475 Chicago public employees found Johnson capturing 20% of the vote among government workers, putting him ahead of every named rival, even as his personal favorability numbers remain deeply underwater within the labor base that helped elect him.
The poll, conducted by M3 Strategies and first reported by WGN-TV, found Johnson with a 28.7% favorable rating and a 64% unfavorable rating among the public employees surveyed. Despite that gap, he still finished ahead of Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, and businessman Willie Wilson when respondents were asked who they’d support. Both Giannoulias and Mendoza posted higher personal favorable ratings than Johnson, according to the poll, even though neither outpolled him on the head-to-head vote question.
The survey lands as the field for Chicago’s February 23, 2027 mayoral election continues to take shape. Under Illinois municipal election rules, the nonpartisan contest requires candidates to gather and submit nominating petitions between July 28 and October 26, 2026, with an April 6, 2027 runoff triggered if no candidate clears 50% plus one of the vote, as detailed by CBS News.
Giannoulias’s War Chest Looms Over the Field
Giannoulias formally launched his mayoral bid on August 2, entering the race with a campaign war chest exceeding $21 million accumulated before his announcement, per the same CBS News report. Mendoza, who previously ran for Chicago mayor in 2019, announced her own campaign on June 3, 2026, building her platform around municipal fiscal instability and public safety concerns, according to the Chicago Tribune’s reporting cited by Wikipedia’s entry on the race…