When the Chicago Teachers Union unveiled its latest political endorsements last week ahead of the March primary, one name was notably absent: Toni Preckwinkle.
The boss of the Cook County Democrats, seeking her fifth term as Cook County Board president, then revealed to reporters that she did not want the progressive labor juggernaut’s support.
“I didn’t seek their endorsement,” Preckwinkle told reporters Thursday, before rattling off a list of unions like the Chicago Federation of Labor and other left-leaning groups who are backing her campaign. “And I’m proud of those endorsements,” she said. “I’ve also been endorsed by the governor of the state, JB Pritzker, the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate.”
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Preckwinkle didn’t elaborate on her reason. Nor did she mention Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has not endorsed her reelection bid so far.
But the former public school teacher’s choice to skip the CTU’s endorsement slate, which has long been viewed as an early signal to progressives about which candidates they should coalesce around, was striking.
Under heavy fire from political opponents, the union and its close ally Johnson have been struggling to hold together their coalition that got him elected in 2023 after backing Preckwinkle for her 2019 mayoral bid. That’s led a few on the left to jump ship early, as evidenced in the mayor’s grueling budget fight last fall.
But it’s unclear whether the famously tight-lipped Preckwinkle is actually on the outs with CTU or merely distancing herself out of concern that the firebrand group’s brand — or Johnson’s — has grown toxic. Preckwinkle is in the midst of one of her most heated primaries yet, and moderate challenger Ald. Brendan Reilly has been attacking her early support of Johnson as being instrumental to his rise.
Ald. Andre Vasquez, who co-chairs the City Council Progressive Caucus, said Preckwinkle’s accomplishments in office are “more important to (constituents) than any JPEG on any mailer or any endorsement.” In fact, some endorsements may even have the opposite effect, he argued.
“The inverse is also true, that someone looks and says, ‘Oh, y’all are all the same because you guys are progressive, which means if I don’t like this about this group, I must not like this about you?’” said Vasquez, who did not get the CTU’s endorsement in his most recent election. “And that is an oversimplification and generalization of what it means to be progressive.”
Delmarie Cobb, a Democratic strategist based in Chicago, said that while the City Hall establishment certainly has knives out for the labor group, she’s not convinced an endorsement “is a political liability.”
“In some corners, CTU is still very popular, and my position on CTU is that it’s a monster that was made by (former Mayor) Rahm Emanuel … but they also are the giant killers,” Cobb said. “All of these organizations, if we’ve learned anything from (President) Donald Trump, is to be the loudest person in the room.”
That makes the CTU’s absence from Preckwinkle’s race against Reilly, a foe of progressives who broke with his party in 2023 to endorse the Republican candidate for Cook County state’s attorney, all the more unusual. Reilly ended last year with $1.2 million in his campaign account, according to state records, roughly twice as much cash on hand as Preckwinkle.
The union’s vice president, Jackson Potter, said he did not “have anything to add” when asked by the Tribune about the group’s endorsements — or lack thereof.
Preckwinkle’s snub of CTU comes after months of her and Johnson’s relationship showing signs of cooling.
Recently, Preckwinkle responded to a question from the Tribune Editorial Board about criticism that Johnson and former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx have not been good for Chicago by defending Foxx’s legacy, one of her closest mentees, but declining to do the same for the mayor.
“I’m focused on my race, and I have no comment,” she said last month when pressed about Johnson.
The nonanswer came after Preckwinkle has steadfastly dodged questions about Johnson’s performance and other City Hall business with a pat response in recent months: “I’m going to stay in my lane.”
When the mayor first took office, he and Preckwinkle scheduled a one-on-one “Standing Biweekly Check in” for six months straight, either at the board president’s office or the mayor’s office on opposite sides of the City Hall and the County Building, according to copies of Johnson’s daily calendars obtained through public records requests. They met more sporadically starting February 2024, with their last check-in scheduled in January 2025 — over a year ago.
Asked to comment on the shift, Preckwinkle said, “We were meeting regularly earlier in his tenure. Our staffs continue to work together on areas of mutual obligation and interest.”
Johnson previously served on the County Board with Preckwinkle from 2018 to 2023 and rarely broke with her leadership. She did not back Johnson’s mayoral bid until he made it into the runoff against Paul Vallas, citing long-standing relationships with several other contenders like U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, state Rep. Kam Buckner, Ald. Roderick Sawyer and Ald. Sophia King.
Preckwinkle was less shy about publicly butting heads with former Mayors Lori Lightfoot and Rahm Emanuel over disagreements, especially as it pertained to criminal justice policy.
To be sure, the apparent cooldown is much less conspicuous than the tension that marks the mayor and governor’s relationship — two offices that have clashed publicly across administrations. Preckwinkle sometimes gets caught in the middle of their showdowns.
In February 2024, a joint announcement from Pritzker and Preckwinkle pledging additional migrant funding cut Johnson out after months of disagreements between the mayor and governor. A source had said Johnson at first intended for the city to also contribute to the $250 million pot but backed off.
The mayor fiercely defended his hesitation to shore up more funds, saying the city has already sacrificed enough for the steep cost of the asylum seeker response, but it was an early moment of his relationships with other levels of government facing challenges.
“We cannot wait for additional resources and Cook County is proud to stand alongside Governor Pritzker in this joint funding plan,” Preckwinkle wrote in her statement that day. Her biweekly meetings with the mayor slowed down around then.
Early last year, a spat between Pritzker and Johnson over a stalled hemp bill led the governor’s chief of staff, Anne Caprara, to send a curt email to her city and county counterparts saying she was opting out of their joint “scenario planning” meetings organized after Trump’s November win and intended to later “catch up separately” with Preckwinkle’s chief of staff.
Johnson and Preckwinkle then met one-on-one the day after Trump’s inauguration, per the mayor’s schedule. That was the last time they privately met in-person, though they later had a phone call scheduled last April.
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Preckwinkle has been the most reticent of the three to engage in friendly fire. As the longtime chair of Cook County Democrats’ powerful political apparatus, she has largely avoided taking intraparty shots and built alliances outside of the leftist activist coalition that’s propelled Johnson and other candidates.
But the ongoing struggles of the progressive movement amid Reilly’s primary challenge may have left her vulnerable enough to rethink tying herself to the CTU at all this election cycle.
CTU did endorse a dozen other candidates in this year’s Cook County races, among statewide and federal races. The labor group largely stayed out of county races until recent years, but backed Preckwinkle’s last reelection bid for board president in 2022 and endorsed Clerk Monica Gordon and eight members of the County Board this year.
One of Preckwinkle’s closest allies, fellow Hyde Park progressive state Sen. Robert Peters, has also yet to nab the CTU’s endorsement in his congressional bid despite pursuing it. He declined to comment last week, though the union could still endorse in that race before the March 17 primary.
The statewide Illinois Federation of Teachers, also led by CTU president Stacy Davis Gates, hasn’t endorsed Peters yet either. The chapter did come out in support of Juliana Stratton, Pritzker’s lieutenant governor, in her high-profile U.S. Senate race.
Meanwhile, the recent city budget fight, which saw moderate aldermen and some progressives lead a revolt to reject the mayor’s proposal and pass their own, has led critics to argue that Johnson and the CTU’s influence is diminished.
One political group started by former Emanuel staffers sent out an anti-Johnson blast last week in support of Ald. Desmon Yancy, a former labor organizer who’s emerged as one of the mayor’s biggest progressive critics on the council.
Cobb, the political consultant, lamented the infighting and questioned why anyone among the city’s left-leaning coalition would be so frustrated they’d rather align with establishment centrists.
“I do think that we’re at a crossroads in terms of the progressive movement,” Cobb said. “What was the point of having a progressive mayor after all these years, if the so-called progressive people in the City Council are going to revert?”
The Tribune’s Jake Sheridan, A.D. Quig and Jeremy Gorner contributed.