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CHICAGO, IL - FEBRUARY 19: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduces President Barack Obama at the Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy on February 19, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois. Obama used the event to designate Chicago's historic Pullman district a national monument. Dating back to the 1880s, the Pullman district, on the city's Far South Side, is one of the country's first company towns. The "town" was founded by George Pullman to house workers at his now-defunct Pullman Palace Car Co., which made luxurious rail cars.(Photo: Scott Olson, Getty Images)
CHICAGO — After a difficult four years at the helm of the country's third-biggest city, Mayor Rahm Emanuel appears to be on the path to winning re-election.
The latest polls by the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times show Emanuel is within striking distance of the 50% plus one vote that he needs in Tuesday's five-candidate primary to avoid a runoff election in April.
Emanuel, who earned a reputation as one of Washington's toughest political operators before returning to Chicago to launch his successful bid for City Hall, finds himself scratching and clawing to try to close the deal.
Emanuel had 45% of the likely vote, and Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia trailed him with 20% of the vote, according to a recent Tribune poll. Alderman Bob Fioretti and businessman Willie Wilson each received 7% support in the poll, while community activist William "Dock" Walls garnered about 2%. Eighteen percent of those polled said they were undecided.
Emanuel raised the bulk of his more than $15 million campaign war chest from about 100 donors.
The mayor took office in 2011 when the city's unemployment rate hovered near 11%. It's now 6.2%.
Chicago — and Emanuel's reputation — took a hit when the city recorded more than 500 murders in 2012 as many other big cities watched their murder rates plunge. In 2014, Chicago recorded 407 homicides, the lowest yearly murder toll in decades.
Emanuel, a three-term congressman and President Obama's first White House chief of staff, made an enemy of the Chicago Teachers Union, which staged its first strike in 25 years early in 2012.
He angered some residents by shuttering 50 schools with low enrollment and several city-run mental health clinics to deal with the city's growing financial problems. Most of the schools and clinics were in predominantly African-American and Latino communities.
The mayor has made the case on the stump that by making some unpopular decisions, he followed through on his campaign promise in 2011 "to challenge the status quo."
"We also made sure we balanced four budgets in a row without a property, sales or gas tax increase," Emanuel said. "Four years in a row, we also put money back in the rainy-day fund, and four years in a row, we increased our investment in after-school, summer jobs and early childhood (education). And that required making changes to a system that was failing the city of Chicago."
The mayor's opponents say voters in the predominantly Democratic city should be cautious about giving Emanuel a second term because of his friendship with the newly elected Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who has proposed deep spending cuts that could have significant ramifications for Chicago.
During Emanuel's brief career in investment banking in the 1990s, he helped cement a half-billion-dollar deal for Rauner's company, GCTR.
Last summer, in the midst of Rauner's successful run to defeat Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, the Tribune published a photo of Rauner and Emanuel carrying expensive bottles of wine as they strolled together through a posh Montana resort.
Garcia, Emanuel's closest challenger in polls, calls Emanuel and Rauner "wine club buddies."
"The voters have seen in the last few months the nice Rahm, the friendly Rahm, especially in the commercials he has purchased," Garcia said. "But we know that won't be the Rahm we'll get if he's re-elected."
In the last lap before Tuesday's primary vote, Emanuel has put much energy into trying to win over voters in the predominantly African-American South and West Sides of the city.
He won a potentially important endorsement last week from Rep. Bobby Rush, a Democrat, who criticized Emanuel six months earlier for the school closings in his South Side district and suggested the city needed new leadership.
The mayor has gotten a lot of help from the president. Thursday, Obama flew into Chicago for a ceremony to designate the Pullman historic district a national monument, the first of its kind in the Windy City.
USA TODAY
Emanuel gets boost from Obama ahead of Chicago election
President Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, left, talk with 4th Ward Alderman Will Burns at his campaign headquarters in Chicago on Feb. 19.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: JIM WATSON, AFP/Getty Images)
The Pullman area, in a predominantly African-American section of the city's far South Side, was home to a factory that manufactured sleeper cars for rail passengers and was at the center of the black labor movement.
Obama heaped praise on Emanuel.
"Rahm hasn't just fought for a national park in Pullman," said Obama, who began his career as a community organizer in the neighborhoods around the old factory. "He's fought for new opportunity and new jobs in Pullman and for every Chicagoan in every neighborhood, making sure that every single person gets the fair shot and success that they deserve. I could not be prouder of him and the extraordinary service that he's provided."
Over the years, Emanuel's salty and brusque demeanor has gained legendary status among Chicago and Washington political watchers. While serving in the Clinton administration, Emanuel famously sent a pollster he was angry with a dead fish a la The Godfather.
In a campaign radio ad he recorded on behalf of Emanuel last month, Obama alluded to the fact that the mayor can rub people the wrong way.
"Let's be honest — at times, the guy can be a little hardheaded," Obama says in the radio ad. "But there's a reason Rahm fights as hard as he does. He loves our city."
Emanuel hopes enough voters see it that way.
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