1951 Chicago mayoral election

In the Chicago mayoral election of 1951, Democrat Martin H. Kennelly was reelected, defeating Republican Robert L. Hunter by a double-digit margin.

1951 Chicago mayoral election

April 3, 1951
Turnout	56.8% 13.51 pp[1][2]
Nominee Martin H. Kennelly Robert L. Hunter Party Democratic Republican Popular vote 697,871 545,326 Percentage 56.14% 43.87%
Mayor before election Martin H. Kennelly Democratic Elected Mayor Martin H. Kennelly Democratic

Wordmark from Kennelly's reelection campaign material

The election was held on April 3.[3]

Background

The state of Illinois in 1944 had passed legislation which aimed to tighten the state's previously overly-lax voter registration laws.[4][5] One measure of this was that, after the November elections in presidential election years, county clerks would begin the process canceling the registration of those who had not voted in the previous four years.[4] There were a number of other measures which would result in the cancellation of voter registrations.[4]

Nominations

Democratic primary

Republican primary

General election

Hunter attacked Kennelly, characterizing him as a "do-nothing mayor".[6] He called for the defeat of not just Kenelly, but of the political machine that had put him forth for mayor.[7] He argued that big-city Democratic machines needed to be defeated in order to save the country.[7]

The Chicago Tribune and Hunter's candidacy were initially closely linked. Hunter would meet twice or thrice weekly with the newspaper's editor Don Maxwell.[7] He effectively adopted their editorials as his own campaign platform.[7] For instance, he adopted the Tribune's stance against municipal ownership of the water supply.[7] The Tribune, and therefore Hunter, blamed the local Democratic Party for having helped President Harry S. Truman win reelection.[7] They therefore litigated what they regarded to have been Truman's misdeeds as presidents, including extending New Deal policies and entering the nation into the Korean War.[7] Local Republicans campaigning for Hunter, including Senator Everett Dirksen, regularly focused their campaign on national and international issues such as the Cold War and the Korean War.[7] They also accused Kennelly of "dodging" national issues.[7] Illinois' Democratic Governor Adlai Stevenson II derided the Republicans' national-politics focused approach to a local election as, "a political absurdity".[7]

The Tribune weakened its support of Hunter after he attacked Commonwealth Edison's new contract with the city under Kennelly, since the chairman of the board for Commonwealth Edison was also on Tribune Company board of directors.[7]

Hunter campaigned vigorously.[7]

The election generated very little interest, contributing to its low turnout.[6]

Contributing to voter apathy may have been findings by the United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce that shined a negative light on the underworld of Chicago politics.[6] Findings by this committee also harmed Kennelly, as he was perceived by the electorate to have done little to stamp out organized crime in the city.[6] However, Hunter also failed to demonstrate to voters ability on his part to solve the crime issue in the city, and refused to take any strong stance against elements of the Republican party that were allied with gangsters[6]

Kennelly had, by 1951, seen a loss of support among African American electorate that had strongly supported him four years earlier.[8]

Results

Kenelly won 34 wards. Hunter defeated Kenelly in sixteen wards, more than double the number of wards that Kennelly had lost four years before.[8]

Mayor of Chicago 1951 election[9]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Democratic	Martin H. Kennelly	697,871	56.14
	Republican	Robert L. Hunter	545,326	43.87
Turnout			1,243,197

References

1. Denvir, Daniel (May 22, 2015). "Voter Turnout in U.S. Mayoral Elections Is Pathetic, But It Wasn't Always This Way". City Lab (The Atlantic). Retrieved 11 December 2018.
2. "Mayoral race one for history books; will turnout be headline or footnote?". Chicago Sun-Times. 8 February 2019. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
3. https://www.chipublib.org/mayor-martin-h-kennelly-biography/
4. ELECTIONS (10 ILCS 5/) Election Code.; Illinois General Assembly
5. The Evolution of American Investigative Journalism by James Aucoin (page 38)
6. Peterson, Virgil W. (2018). Barbarians in Our Midst: A History of Chicago Crime and Politics. Pickle Partners Publishing. pp. 584–585. ISBN 978-1-78912-460-6. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
7. Heuer, Robert (25 April 1991). "The Life and Times of Judge Robert Hunter". Chicago Reader. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
8. Green, Paul M.; Holli, Melvin G. (10 January 2013). "The Mayors: The Chicago Political Tradition, fourth edition". SIU Press. p. 159. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
9. "RaceID=8132". Our Campaigns. Retrieved December 11, 2018.