Though the 2027 Chicago municipal election is a little less than 20 months away, political campaigns are already in full swing and bound to increase in the coming months.
A months-long debate about large teen gatherings known as “trends” came to a head on June 18, when a controversial “snap curfew” ordinance passed 27-22 in City Council. Two days later, Mayor Brandon Johnson listened to the calls of his base and officially vetoed it.
Now there’s an issue-based political text campaign slamming Johnson and some of the alders who voted against the ordinance. This is significant because a vote on Johnson’s veto is scheduled for the next City Council meeting on July 16; a total of 34 votes are needed to override the mayor.
The TRiiBE has received screenshots of these mass text messages that were sent out to Chicago residents in five wards led by progressive Latiné alders, telling them that “teen violence is rising.” The messaging blames Johnson and the alders of those wards for “making our streets less safe” by voting “against the common-sense curfew to stop dangerous and violent teen takeovers.” It also encourages the text recipient to “reply ‘YES’ to demand action.”
“This kind of effort is meant to bring pressure on the alderpersons who voted against the snap [curfew] decision,” renown Chicago political scientist Dick Simpson said, “but also to set up the possibility of challenges in the 2027 election by beginning to discredit the voting record of the alderpersons if they think the constituents wouldn’t approve that vote.”
The texts are being sent out by the Urban Center PAC, a political action committee launched in 2024 by former Chicago Public Schools CEO and failed mayoral candidate Paul Vallas. Juan Rangel, a former Latiné charter school operator, leads the Urban Center PAC. He’s also the CEO of The Urban Center nonprofit.
In a phone interview with The TRiiBE, Rangel confirmed that his PAC sent text messages to constituents in specific wards.
“In the meetings that we’ve been having in the community, many people have expressed concern on a variety of issues, but in particular, the issue of crime in their communities and their city,” Rangel said. “Some of the aldermen voted against the curfew ordinance, and we’re supporting the curfew ordinance. We think that’s something that the community supports. It’s giving the police superintendent one more tool to fight crime and violence, and it was unfortunate some of the aldermen chose to oppose it.”
As written, the ordinance would have given sole authority to the Chicago Police superintendent to enact a “snap curfew” with a 30-minute’s notice — at any time or any place in the city.
Rangel said the goal of his PAC’s text campaign is to empower residents to voice their disapproval of how their elected officials voted on this issue.
“It’s a growing movement of people that are just fed up with the direction that politicians are taking our city, and politicians are, in many ways, hurting our city, our neighborhoods, based on votes that they take in the City Council, and people should feel comfortable knowing that the politicians represent them,” Rangel explained. “It’s not the other way around. It’s no longer the tail wagging the dog. The voters have to have a say. Communities have to have a say.”
But here’s where things become quite misleading.
The texts say that “teen violence is rising.” But violent crime is down in Chicago, according to police data. For two consecutive months (April and May), Chicago has seen historic lows in homicides. Both Johnson and Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling has spoken publicly about the reduction in crime. There also hasn’t been a violent teen takeover since March.
Rangel also agreed that crime is down. However, he said, community members are still voicing their concerns about crime because it’s still a pressing issue for them. Over the last few months, he said his PAC has been hosting invite-only community meetings citywide. He said that’s where he’s hearing residents express concerns with crime and taxes.
“We should not be comfortable just saying, ‘Well, crime is down.’ Yes, it could be down, but it should be even lower than what it is, and negating any opportunity for law enforcement to be able to fight crime or try to make a greater dent on street violence is unnecessary,” he said. “We should be open to more options for police and community.”
Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th Ward) is one of the targets of the Urban Center PAC’s mass text campaign. She said it’s not the first time she’s been the subject of their political hits. It also happened in May 2024 when she voted against extending the ShotSpotter contract, in March when she voted in favor of a bond ordinance which allows the city to borrow $830 million to fund capital projects, and in May before Jessica Vasquez’s appointment to the Cook County Board of Commissioners.
“This is not the first time the Urban Center sends out a text message,” Fuentes explained. “Anytime I, or any other Latino progressive specifically, have taken a vote they don’t like, they’ve been utilizing the PAC to send negative text messages about us and try to align us with things that they don’t necessarily value. I think they’ve made it very clear that their goal is to take out progressives.”
So far, The TRiiBE has confirmed that these finger-wagging texts were sent to constituents in the 12th, 26th, 30th, 33rd, and 35th wards. These wards are represented by Latiné alders who are members of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus.
A separate mass text campaign with a more laudative tone went out, as well. The TRiiBE obtained text messages that applauded Ald. Felix Cardona (31st Ward) for standing up to Johnson’s radical agenda and voting in favor of the curfew ordinance. These messages also contain The Urban Center’s logo. The TRiiBE reached out to Cardona’s staff, but they haven’t gotten back to our request to confirm if any 31st ward residents received those messages.
Fuentes said she and her wife both received the texts, and her constituents called to give her a heads-up. Homicides are also down in the 26th Ward, which stretches from Humboldt Park north to Hermosa. So far in 2025, there’s been one homicide in the ward, according to city data.
“To be able to accomplish that is to have invested in public safety. So this rhetoric, that we don’t care about public safety, that all we do is protect criminals, is just not factual at all,” Fuentes said.
For Fuentes, this text campaign indicates that PACs like the Urban Center are highly motivated to remove progressives from office.
“They’re working to try to build a base before the upcoming municipal election in 2027, so they’re starting their work,” Fuentes said.
Veteran journalist and political consultant Delmarie Cobb echoed that sentiment. She said the Urban Center PAC is targeting progressive Latiné alders to push them out of office. “There’s nothing progressive about Juan Rangel, whatsoever,” Cobb said.
Prior to The Urban Center, Rangel led the United Neighborhood Organization (UNO) and its charter-school network. He resigned in 2013 after the Chicago Sun-Times reported that UNO “paid millions of dollars from a state grant to companies owned by two brothers of a UNO executive.” Rangel also co-chaired Rahm Emanuel’s first mayoral campaign in 2011.
This year, Rangel’s PAC commissioned a poll, conducted by M3 Strategies, that found Johnson had a favorability rating of 6%.
Cobb questioned Rangel’s intentions. “He’s doing this because Vallas didn’t go nowhere,” she said. Since losing the 2023 election, Vallas has taken up writing opinion editorials for the Chicago Tribune and articles for the nonprofit think-tank Illinois Policy; he’s listed online as a senior fellow for the latter. He’s been critical of Johnson, the Chicago Teachers Union and Gov. J.B. Pritzker in his writings.
“Vallas still would like to be mayor, and Vallas is still sitting around throwing rocks in the playground every time [Johnson] does something because that’s his way of never letting go of the fact that he lost,” Cobb continued.
Crime trending downwards in Chicago demonstrates that violence prevention efforts and investments in youth are working, Cobb said. She added that Johnson should take a page out of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign book. The 33-year-old New York State Assembly member and Democratic Socialist beat out former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to secure the Democratic nomination for NYC mayor. House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said Mamdani outworked, out organized and out communicated his opponents.
Cobb refers to this phenomenon as a language invasion. “Democrats and progressives are allowing Trump’s language to invade the day-to-day narrative, and even by doing that, you’ve allowed them to set the tone.”
Simpson, a retired University of Illinois at Chicago political science professor and former 44th Ward alderman, also explained that voters must practice discernment as they take in information during highly contentious political cycles. He recommended using resources like the Illinois Sunshine Database, an online tool that compiles political contributions in Illinois, to track the flow of campaign dollars. And, of course, there’s Google.
“It is important to check any political message, no matter who the source is, and even that can be done on the internet by simply googling,” Simpson said.
