The decadeslong effort of the Chicago Teachers Union to climb the political ranks culminated with the election of union organizer Brandon Johnson as mayor in 2023. Not long afterward, a local TV station ran a story about the union with the headline, “After Brandon Johnson elected mayor, some wonder if the CTU is Chicago’s new political machine.”
Its influence seems short-lived. Chicago voters’ appetite for the union has shifted — drastically — and politicians have noticed. The CTU was a kingmaker, but its endless support for new and higher taxes coupled with organizational scandals, its latest “May Day” push to cancel school for a day and recent electoral defeats suggest the mighty has fallen.
The CTU endorsed 13 candidates and spent over $760,000 in contested races in the March 17 primary. The effort came up short. Seven of those 13 candidates lost — which doesn’t bode well for Johnson should he seek reelection.
The results repeat a trend that began in 2024, when six of nine CTU-endorsed candidates in competitive races for the Chicago Board of Education lost, despite the union spending $2.1 million on those races.
The CTU recently hit record-low popularity in Chicago, with just 27.5%
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of likely city voters having a favorable opinion of the union, according to a M3 Strategies poll for the Illinois Policy Institute.Several Democratic candidates distanced themselves from the union in the primary. Daniel Biss, who won the Democratic primary in the 9th Congressional District, didn’t highlight his CTU endorsement on his website. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, a former CTU-backed candidate for Chicago mayor, didn’t seek its endorsement at all. None of the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate said they’d outright support Johnson for reelection.
It’s not surprising that politicians would de-emphasize their CTU backing. Under the leadership of Stacy Davis Gates, the union has been mired in personal and organizational scandals. Its own members have sued because leaders aren’t following the union’s own rules on financial transparency — a Cook County judge has rejected the CTU’s efforts to end the case.
And increasingly, the union pushes for measures that go against what the majority of Chicagoans want.
The CTU frequently advocates for higher taxes, including increased funding or junk bonds for Chicago Public Schools, a head tax on Chicago’s largest employers and Johnson’s failed Bring Chicago Home referendum. This despite Chicago voters having identified high taxes as one of the city’s top issues.
Chicagoans’ lives have become more expensive since the Caucus of Rank-and-File Educators took control of CTU leadership in 2010. The average Chicago residence paid $2,059 in property taxes to CPS in 2024, a 62% increase from 15 years earlier. More than half of a Chicago homeowner’s property tax bill now goes toward CPS.
All while CPS has continued raising property tax levies to address budget pressures from the CTU’s latest contract.
The policy differences extend beyond taxes. The CTU endorsed Kim Foxx’s protégé Clayton Harris III for Cook County state’s attorney in 2024 after previously endorsing Foxx twice.
Under Foxx, cases of vehicle theft reached record highs, crime rates spiked on the CTA and shoplifting reports rose after she raised the felony threshold from $300 to $1,000. During her final year in office, crime consistently ranked as the No. 1 issue for Illinoisans, according to the Illinois Policy Institute’s Lincoln poll.
The union had never previously endorsed a candidate for state’s attorney. Eileen O’Neill Burke defeated Harris.
The CTU also consistently opposes educational opportunities for students and parents, including charter schools, despite their popularity. The union also is against selective-enrollment schools, falsely saying they promote segregation.
In selective-enrollment schools, 3 out of 5 students are Black or Hispanic, and 45% are low-income. On average, Black selective-enrollment high school juniors were nearly three times more likely to read at grade level than their peers in other CPS high schools.
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Instead of adopting successful models, whether commonsense criminal justice practices or supporting successful schools, the CTU pushed for the opposite. Chicagoans have started to reject its views.
The CTU remains a powerful political organization with significant funding. But people don’t want to be affiliated with its leadership that leaves parents with no child care for random days off, pushes tax hikes on residents and bankrolls the city’s unpopular mayor.
The CTU spent years building political power. This election suggests it may have peaked.
Mailee Smith is vice president of policy and litigation for the Illinois Policy Institute. Micky Horstman is the communications manager for the group and social mobility fellow for Young Voices.
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