In an impressive show of political muscle, city treasurer Miriam Santos, the first Hispanic to hold citywide office, was the landslide winner Tuesday in the Democratic primary for treasurer, swamping Hyde Park Ald. Lawrence Bloom (5th) by a better than 2-1 ratio.
Santos’ totals virtually equaled the huge numbers rolled up by her estranged mentor, Mayor Richard M. Daley, and demonstrate that Santos is a powerful political figure in her own right, even without Daley’s endorsement.
With a win in the primary virtually assuring victory in the April 4 general election, Santos, 39, now has a post she can use to vault to a higher-profile office, a widely predicted career path for the Puerto Rican-American.
Ald. James Laski (23rd) was the winner in the Democratic primary contest for the city clerk nomination, easily dispatching State Sen. Rickey Hendon, cable TV producer T. Ron Jasinski-Herbert and Anthony P. Harper, a follower of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche.
LaRouche follower Douglas Heitz was a distant third in the Democratic treasurer’s primary.
The Santos-Bloom contest had been the liveliest-and sometimes nastiest-rivalry in an otherwise comatose election season as the two candidates charged, countercharged and spent their way to the Tuesday confrontation that turned out to be an enormous victory for the incumbent.
Bloom, 51, ending his 16-year aldermanic career as a leading independent representing Hyde Park, has said he probably will now retire from public life and concentrate on the downtown law practice he shares with his 83-year-old father.
Declaring victory, Santos told her supporters, “We were able to bring together people from every corner of this wonderful and great city.”
“I will continue to stand up and make the right tough decisions. You are the real bosses who own this process,” said Santos in a jab at Daley, whom she broke with in a very public feud over his efforts to remove her from city employee pension boards in 1991.
With only half the vote counted, Bloom called Santos to congratulate her and then told campaign supporters, “I consider myself a winner, too. You can’t serve your city for 16 years through very historic times and not consider yourself a winner.”
More Top Picks Best Amazon Prime Day Gopro Deals 2026
Bloom, a key supporter of the late Mayor Harold Washington, told about 50 supporters gathered in his law office building north of the Loop, “I was standing there when Harold Washington won . . . and I tell you becoming a private citizen will become a pleasure, too.”
Patricia Rogers, 47, a self-employed financial consultant and 7th Ward GOP committeeman, easily won the GOP primary for treasurer, running against little-known West Sider Melvin Delk, 42.
In the GOP primary race for clerk, perennial candidate Edward Howlett was unchallenged.
For Chicagoans yearning for a sizzling election, the best they could do was the slow boil generated by Santos and Bloom, who together spent close to $400,000 on TV ads designed to make the other candidate look bad.
Bloom accused Santos of everything from sloppy bookkeeping to taking a Chicago policeman as a taxpayer-paid “consort” on non-business-related trips out of town. But the charges, spread with the help of a $160,000 television and radio budget, clearly did not raise many negatives against the incumbent or give voters a compelling reason to turn her out of an office that she has held for 6 years after having been appointed by Mayor Daley to fill a vacancy in 1989.
None of these issues ever caught on, and the race came down to who had better name recognition and help from key aldermen.
After Daley appointed Santos to the treasurer’s job, she won the job handily in 1991 and sought re-election on a platform that said, basically, the city was in sound financial shape. Daley claimed neutrality in Tuesday’s treasurer primary.
With the city’s bond rating recently improved, voters clearly agreed, endorsing her again for a job that consists of banking city tax dollars and voting on four city worker pension boards.