Preckwinkle poised for record-tying fifth term after primary win

Longtime Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle may be on her way to tying the record as the longest-tenured head of county government.

With 89% of precincts reporting, the four-term leader of the nation’s second-largest county bested Democratic primary challenger Brendan Reilly 430,123 votes to 197,506 votes, according to unofficial results Tuesday night. That gave Preckwinkle about 68% of the total.

Preckwinkle, who turned 79 on primary Election Day, would match George Dunne as the county’s longest-serving leader if she’s elected in November and completes a fifth four-year term.

“We’ve built something special in Cook County,” Preckwinkle said after supporters serenaded her with “Happy Birthday” during a victory party on Chicago’s South Side.

“Sixteen years ago, the Cook County I stepped into was very different from the one we see today,” she said. “Back then, Cook County faced real financial instability, public trust was low, and most people didn’t think much about county government or expect very much from it.”

“We stabilized our finances, we strengthened our public health system, we invested in our communities,” she continued. “We reshaped county government into something more engaged, more proactive and more willing to act as a partner, advocate and ally for our residents.”

No Republicans ran in Tuesday’s primary but the GOP could still field a candidate. Libertarian Michael Murphy of Chicago’s West Side will be on the general election ballot.

Preckwinkle, a former history teacher and South Side Chicago alderman who is head of the Cook County Democratic Party, ran on a record of balancing budgets, erasing medical debt for low-income residents, and making a guaranteed income pilot program permanent. She touted lower crime statistics while championing the state’s criminal justice reform law she helped enact.

But it was issues of crime and public safety that Reilly — a centrist member of the Chicago City Council and fierce critic of Preckwinkle protégé Mayor Brandon Johnson — made the centerpiece of his campaign.

Reilly, 54, the downtown 42nd Ward alderman since 2007, publicized high-profile failures with the county’s electronic monitoring program, such as the arson attack on a woman aboard a CTA Blue Line train. He called for the program to be shifted back to Sheriff Tom Dart from Chief Judge Charles Beach, and vowed to use the county board’s power of the purse to withhold funds from a program that “lacks the capacity to chase violators.”

The hotly contested primary came amid fallout from the massive countywide technology system overhaul.

Reilly called implementation of the new property tax billing system by vendor Tyler Technologies “an absolute disaster” that “wreaked havoc” on suburban governments, since it led some schools and libraries to take out loans while waiting for their share of taxes from the county.

Preckwinkle countered that despite bills going out late last year, the system is now in place and first installment 2025 tax bills have been mailed. She argued that property taxes hadn’t gone out on time for more than 30 years before she came into office in 2010, and no one else tried to fix the complicated system that used outdated technology.

After conceding to Preckwinkle Tuesday night, Reilly said he’d continue to fight for priorities like public safety and sound financial management on the city council.