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‘Billionaires vs. Brandon’: Mayor Johnson announces reelection bid for 2027

By Tiffany Walden

Published on September 13, 2026

‘Billionaires vs. Brandon’: Mayor Johnson announces reelection bid for 2027

Mayor Brandon Johnson at the 35th annual MLK Breakfast at Rainbow/P.U.S.H. in 2025. Photo by Kenn Cook, Jr. for The TRiiBE.

Mayor Brandon Johnson is running for reelection in 2027. And the 50-year-old West Side resident didn’t mince words when laying out what’s at stake for the people this time around.

“It’s going to be billionaires versus Brandon and Brandon’s coalition,” Johnson told The TRiiBE in a one-on-one interview last week. His coalition, of course, is inspired by the rainbow coalitions of past freedom movements led by the late Illinois Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton, Sr. and civil rights giant Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

“That’s why folks are raising so much money, to disrupt our broad coalition. The same people who closed schools want the fifth floor back. The same people who disinvested on the West and South sides of Chicago, they want the fifth floor back. The same people who shuttered our mental health clinics and lined the pockets of the ultra rich using TIF [Tax Increment Financing] dollars, they want City Hall back,” Johnson said. “We’re going to take on the billionaire class [and] the interests of corporations, and we’re going to make sure we have a people-powered campaign that continues our path to build the safest, most affordable big city in America.”

This afternoon, Johnson is scheduled to announce his reelection bid in front of his supporters at an event hosted by the Brandon Johnson for Chicago campaign committee at the DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center. There are now 15 candidates in the 2027 mayoral race; of the big names are center-leaning Democrats Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, State Comptroller Susana Mendoza and Congressman Mike Quigley.

After his announcement, Johnson will do some door knocking in Ald. Jeanette Taylor’s 20th Ward on the South Side to kick off The Working People’s Neighborhood Tour.

“Organized people will prevail over money,” the incumbent said. In 2023, get-out-the-vote efforts played a major role in Johnson’s campaign. United Working Families (UWF), for example, knocked on over 450,000 doors, made over 650,000 phone calls, and sent over 820,000 texts to promote Johnson’s candidacy.

Money-wise, in June, Johnson held about $631,309 in his campaign fund, trailing some of his opponents. For comparison, Giannoulias had $21.9 million in his campaign coffers that month. Johnson’s campaign was outraised by his opponents in 2023, too, but he still beat former Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas in an April runoff with 52.16% of the vote. Needless to say, Johnson’s not worried about having the biggest campaign war chest.

“What I’m going to continue to rely upon is that broad coalition; Black, brown, white, Asian, young [and] old across the city will need to continue to amplify and lift up the work that we have done,” Johnson said.

The mayor has accomplished quite a bit in his term so far. Under his tenure, Chicago is seeing historic lows in crime. In 2025, Chicago saw its lowest homicide total in 60 years.

The Johnson Administration also made a record-breaking investment in youth this summer under the rebranded Chicago Youth Works, funding more than 32,500 paid opportunities for teens and young adults, the highest annual total in Chicago history. Johnson sees parallels between youth jobs and the decreases in violence.

He also touts reopening shuttered mental health clinics and unlocking billions of dollars in investments on the South and West sides. He pointed to Thrive Englewood, a $40.2 million mixed-used affordable housing building on the South Side; and Austin United Alliance Apartments, a 78-unit mixed income development next to the historic Laramie State Bank building in the Soul City Corridor out west. The latter project dates back to former Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Invest South/West initiative.

“Something that I’m incredibly proud of, we have turned many of the closed schools into affordable housing units,” Johnson said, referencing the Charles Earle School Apartments in West Englewood and a new developer agreement to turn the former former Matthew Henson Elementary School in North Lawndale into affordable housing.

Critics, however, have strongly opposed his positioning on and handling of “the migrant crisis” he inherited once in office. Johnson stood his ground on protecting Chicago’s sanctuary city status against the Republican-majority House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who invited him and other Democratic mayors to testify in Washington, D.C. Dozens of supporters rallied behind him, including longtime West Side Congressman Danny K. Davis and Cook County Board Commissioner Tara Stamps.

At the time, Johnson told The TRiiBE he saw the struggles between Black people and immigrants as a part of a shared oppression by white supremacy and colonialism.

“We are a welcoming city. We are attached to the history of Mayor Harold Washington and his corporate counsel [James] Montgomery, who understood that giving free reign to law enforcement to do anything that it pleased was dangerous, particularly to our people,” Johnson said.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson alongside community leaders (left to right) U.S. Rep. Jonathan L. Jackson (D-1), Chicago School Board member Jitu Brown, Cook County Commissioner Tara Stamps, executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) Frank Chapman, U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-17), and other community organizers at a press conference after the House Oversight Committee hearing on sanctuary cities at Capitol Hill on March 5, 2025. Photo by Ash Lane for The TRiiBE®

Some Chicagoans have also wanted more from Johnson as it relates to the Chicago Police Department’s alleged cooperation with federal immigration agents. This week, there’s been reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents staging in a parking lot run by the CPD’s Albany Park District on the North Side.

Since President Donald J. Trump Administration’s “Midway Blitz” in Chicago last year, Johnson has signed multiple executive orders establishing ICE-free zones on city property and directing Chicago police to investigate alleged illegal activity by federal immigration agents and send evidence to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. On Saturday, Johnson released a statement about the reported ICE activity on city property.

“The Mayor’s Office and the Chicago Police Department are actively monitoring and responding to reported violations of municipal and state law by federal immigration agents, while working to document and compile evidence of violations of Mayor Johnson’s executive order,” the statement read.

Johnson reiterated to The TRiiBE that he made a promise to the people of Chicago to build the safest, most affordable big city in America.

“We are certainly making tremendous strides and progress towards that, but there’s certainly more work for us to do, and we most definitely cannot go backwards,” Johnson said. “We’re not going to allow the city of Chicago to be turned back over to the hands of corporate interests.”

Here’s the list of mayoral challengers as of today (in alphabetical order by last name):