In the 19th Ward, which includes Beverly, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood on the city’s far South Side, incumbent Ald. Matt O’Shea is running against two challengers, retired CPD sergeant Mike Cummings and resident Tim Noonan. The 19th currently has the highest turnout of any ward, at 3,611 votes cast.

Two candidates for Police District Councils (PDCs) in the 22nd District, which encompasses much of the 19th Ward on the Southwest Side, are endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP): ex-cop Lee Bielecki and Mount Greenwood resident Patrick Kennedy. There are three other candidates in the 22nd District: Matthew Biancotto, a resident of Mount Greenwood who has expressed support for police, Carisa Parker, an LSC member and mother of a CPD officer, and Andre Pate, a pro-accountability candidate.  

In the 41st Ward, which includes Norwood Park, O’Hare Airport and parts of Jefferson Park, attorney Paul Struebing is challenging two-term incumbent Ald. Anthony Napolitano. The 41st is second in total votes cast, at 2,952. Both the 19th and 41st wards are predominately white and home to many police and city workers. 

The ballot for PDC members in the 16th District, which covers much of the 41st Ward on the Northwest Side, has seven candidates. None are pro-accountability, and three (Colleen Mary Dillon, Daniel Martin, and John Marcatante) are endorsed by the FOP.

Just south of the 16th District, the race for the 25th District PDC is split between a slate of three pro-accountability candidates who support more police accountability (Jacob Arena, Saul Arellano and Angelica Green) and two who are endorsed by the FOP, Perry Abbasi and Edgar Esparza.

In West Side wards, turnout has been variable. In the 29th Ward, which includes parts of Austin, voters have cast 1,553 votes. That’s just a few shy of the median turnout for all wards, which is 1,561. Incumbent Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th Ward), faces two challengers, CB Johnson and Corey Dooley. 

In the 22nd Ward, which includes much of Little Village and where incumbent Ald. Mike Rodriguez also faces two challengers (Neftalie Gonzalez and Kristian Armendariz), just 492 ballots had been cast as of Feb. 15.

In the 28th Ward, which includes much of Garfield Park, early voting is the lowest citywide. Incumbent Ald. Jason Ervin is running unopposed, but the races for 11th and 12th Police Districts (which the 28th Ward meanders across) are contested.

The highest turnout the West Side has ever seen was in the 1983 municipal election that brought Harold Washington to office. Harold won just 22 out of 28 wards, but eked out a victory largely on the strength of overwhelming turnout by Black voters. Citywide, turnout in the 1983 election was 82 percent. White voters came out in numbers, and the overwhelming majority of them crossed party lines to vote for Bernie Epton, a Republican who ran an openly racist campaign against Harold. In wards like the 38th — the scene of the infamous St. Pascal’s incident, in which a white mob drove Harold and his surrogates away during the election — turnout was 87 percent, and Epton took 94 percent of the vote. 

In West Side wards such as the 24th, 28th and 29th, turnout in 1983 was 81 percent, 79 percent, and 80 percent, respectively. Harold won those wards by a landslide, taking 99 percent of votes in the 24th and 28th wards and 93 percent in the 29th. Harold also carried much of the South Side, taking 99 percent of the vote in then-Ald. Eugene Sawyer’s Sixth Ward and 93 percent of then-Ald. Tim Evan’s Fourth Ward. The overwhelming turnout of Black voters, along with coalition Latine and liberal white voters, gave Harold enough to break the white machine’s stranglehold on City Hall.