In Cook County, Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Assessor nominee Pat Hynes lead in early results
Democrats running for countywide offices — including Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Assessor nominee Pat Hynes — could breathe easy Tuesday night as early results showed both with massive leads.
Other countywide Democratic candidates, all well-known incumbents or facing no or only nominal competition, were also declared early victors Tuesday night shortly after the polls closed.
Four-termer Preckwinkle handily beat downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly, who failed to convince voters they needed something new in the March Democratic primary. Hynes, a one-time functionary in the assessor’s office, defeated self-funded incumbent Fritz Kaegi by promising to make things more predictable. Both face Libertarian challengers with little funding or name recognition as they headed into Election Day.
With about 20% of estimated votes counted, Preckwinkle led with 75.6% while Hynes led with 83.2%.
County Clerk Monica Gordon and Treasurer Maria Pappas are unopposed and were declared winners just after polls closed, while Sheriff Tom Dart ran unopposed in the primary and faces Libertarian Brad Sandefur. Dart similarly led by 83.8% with about 20% of estimated votes counted.
The assessor calculates the value of each property in Cook County. It’s a key input — along with levies from local governments and the county’s wide array of breaks and incentives — that determines what each taxpayer must ultimately pay.
Hynes promised to make assessments more predictable and level after back-to-back years of record increases.
After taking office in late 2018, Kaegi shifted assessments to account for systemic undervaluing of commercial buildings and overvaluation of low-income properties. The numbers changed again during the pandemic, when he instituted a “COVID adjustment” reducing residential values to account for what Kaegi officials initially thought would be mass unemployment. The COVID adjustment later wore off at the same time the housing market boomed and the commercial market was still scarred by vacancy.
The combination contributed to a double whammy of assessment increases for many homeowners and frustration from many elected officials. Kaegi pointed to the county’s Board of Review, the three-member panel that hears assessment appeals, as a culprit because it overturned many of his commercial values.
Big business interests like building owners, developers and the property tax attorneys that file appeals for both lined up with Hynes, who convinced party officials to endorse him over the summer. Trade labor unions eager for more construction work also backed him. Kaegi poured some $2.75 million into his own race since the start of 2025, according to state records.
Hynes pledged to offer near certainty for developers seeking to build here. He campaigned on creating an office that, based on neighborhood, size and classification, could tell builders the likely assessment of their property.
The Board of Review would also see less “animosity” than under Kaegi, Hynes said.
While property tax politics have changed very little, Hynes will take over an office much transformed compared with when his uncle, former assessor Thomas Hynes, ran it between 1979 and 1997.
The elder Hynes’ tenure was notably scandal-free. He successfully lobbied for the office’s first incentives, including the homeowners property tax break, as well as one for seniors, plus others aimed at businesses and the construction of low-income housing. He computerized the office’s residential property records, changed the assessment calendar from a four-year cycle down to three, and tweaked assessment rates.
The third floor will look different from when Pat Hynes was last working there as a field inspector in 2020. He will inherit a fully adopted Tyler Technologies system, the software that shares property data across most of the other tax offices, annual audits of assessments, and a recent agreement with the Board of Review to adopt some of the same baseline calculations.
One of the Chicago City Council’s better known and best funded members, Reilly was one of Preckwinkle’s toughest primary opponents in years.
Difficulties dragging the Tyler Technologies project over the finish line dogged Preckwinkle throughout the primary. Reilly attempted to tie the late bills, overdue refunds, and costly delays in distributing property tax revenues to local governments to Preckwinkle’s “total mismanagement” of the project. She shot back, arguing the upgrade was desperately needed and after a competitive evaluation process, Tyler was the only company qualified to do the job. She added that she had little control over the other offices with stakes in the upgrade.
Reilly also dredged up unpopular tax hikes Preckwinkle pushed roughly a decade ago and sought to tie her to Kim Foxx — Preckwinkle’s former chief of staff who became the county’s top prosecutor — and Mayor Brandon Johnson. Preckwinkle helped get Johnson elected to the County Board but the relationship between the two has since chilled. She declined to endorse Johnson for another term during one of their debates back in February.
Preckwinkle, meanwhile, leaned into her progressive bona fides, reminding voters of the ways she’d stood up to President Donald Trump and his administration’s immigration enforcement, investments made in erasing medical debt and piloting a guaranteed income program, and criminal justice reforms that had not contributed to a spike in crime.
She also touted the county’s improved fiscal status, earning several bond rating upgrades, improving pension funding and building up emergency balances without new or hiked taxes and fees in recent years.
Preckwinkle, the head of the county’s Democratic Party, also shored up her political support from unions, other top Democrats like Gov. JB Pritzker and state Senate President Don Harmon, and progressive advocacy groups. Reilly, while promising weekly endorsements, only rolled out a handful.
aquig@chicagotribune.com| Chicago Tribune