 | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
TheChicago mayoral election of 1939 was held on April 5, 1939. The election saw incumbentEdward J. Kelly being reelected to a second full term (third overall term), defeatingDwight H. Green by a double-digit margin.
Both major parties heldprimary elections to determine their nominees. The primaries were held on February 28, 1939. Kelly won renomination in theDemocratic Party primary againstThomas J. Courtney, theCook County state's attorney. In his candidacy, Courtney had sought to challenge the city's Democraticpolitical machine. In theRepublican Party primary, Green won a massive victory over former mayorWilliam Hale Thompson.
Incumbent Democrat Edward J. Kelly had already served for nearly six years, which meant that he was going to tie the record at the time for the most consecutive years spent as mayor (Carter Harrison Jr. had also spent six consecutive years between 1899 and 1905). By seeking election an additional four-year term, Kelly was running to have the longest uninterrupted mayoralty Chicago had ever seen.[1] An additional four years would also tie him with Carter Harrison Jr. for the longest-serving mayor in Chicago history at the time (Harrison had served ten non-consecutive years as mayor).
Kelly fended off a primary challenge fromThomas J. Courtney. Rebellious and reform-oriented Democrats united behind Thomas J. Courtney as a challenger to Kelly and the political machine.[1] Courtney had initially held hopes of aligning himself with GovernorHenry Horner. Horner had been engaging in a political feud with Kelly and Chicago DemocraticbossPatrick Nash. However, Horner made peace with Chicago's Democratic machine before the mayoral primary, consequentially robbing Courntney of an opportunity to capitalize off of discord between the Chicago political establishment and the state's governor.[2] Despite efforts to draft him,[3]Harold L. Ickes did not run for the nomination.
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Edward J. Kelly (incumbent) | 604,000 | 62.78 | |
| Democratic | Thomas J. Courtney | 358,139 | 37.22 | |
| Turnout | 962,139 | |||
Dwight H. Green defeated former mayor William Hale Thompson in the Republican primary. Thompson had announced his bid in mid-December 1938.[5] This is regarded to have been the last time that two big-name individuals faced one another in a Republican Chicago mayoral primary.[6]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Dwight H. Green | 211,965 | 77.27 | |
| Republican | William H. Thompson | 62,352 | 22.73 | |
| Turnout | 274,317 | |||
Republican[8] Arthur P. Reilly ran as an independent.
Republican nominee Dwight H. Green was strong opponent to the incumbent Kelly.[9] Green was a young and talented lawyer, as well as a political reformer. As an assistant district attorney, Green had helped to construct the income tax evasion case which led to mobsterAl Capone's imprisonment.[1] Green ran a vigorous campaign which attempted to make the case against Kelly's political campaign for its connections with criminal elements.[1] His campaign also harshly criticized increases in the city tax rate.[1] Green's campaign, in a sense, was a four-month series of attacks on the Kelly-Patrick Nashpolitical machine.[9] Kelly did not respond to Green's criticisms.[9] In fact, for the duration of his campaign, Kelly did not even utter his Republican opponent's name.[9] After his defeat in the primary, Thomas Courtney reluctantly agreed to endorse Kelly.[1]
Kelly received the backing oftrade unions.[9] By 1939, a significant number of Chicago'sAfrican American voters had migrated their support from the Republican party to the Democratic Party.[9] Kelly would receive at least half the African American vote.[9] Additionally, many of those who supported or benefited from theNew Deal policies of Democratic presidentFranklin Roosevelt supported Kelly's reelection.[9] On the eve of the election, Kelly received a further boost when former United States District AttorneyGeorge E. Q. Johnson declared in a radio address that he considered Chicago to no longer be a capital of crime, arguing that the city now led the nation incrime prevention, largely crediting Kelly and the city's police commissioner for this.[9]
Kelly won the election by a decisive margin and with a record-setting vote total.[10] The overall vote total in the election was record-setting as well.[9]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Edward J. Kelly (incumbent) | 822,469 | 56.12 | |
| Republican | Dwight H. Green | 638,068 | 43.54 | |
| Independent | Arthur P. Reilly | 4,921 | 0.34 | |
| Turnout | 1,465,458 | |||
Both parties attempted to spin the narrative of the election result to their advantage.[10]Democratic National Committee chairmanJames Farley declared that "As Illinois goes, so will the nation1940."[10] However Republicans tried to argue that Green's performance, the best by a Republican Chicago mayoral candidate in a decade, demonstrated that there was promise for Republicans to carry Illinois' 29 electoral votes in 1940.[10] Green would go onto be electedGovernor of Illinois the following year.[9]
| | |
| Elections |
| |
1 tenure as acting officeholder. 2 Election declared null and void. | ||
.jpg)
.jpg)
