Chicago’s mayoral run-off will test the Democrats’ left and right

BY THE TIME Brandon Johnson arrived on the stage at the El Palais Bu-Sché banqueting hall in Chicago’s long-neglected Far West Side, a few hours after the results of the first round of the city’s municipal elections began to trickle in, the crowd was already at full throttle. Minutes before, a speaker had announced: “we showed tonight this entire city that good can defeat evil.” It took all of Mr Johnson’s charisma to quell the cheering. He did so with a tale of his time as a public-school teacher, in Cabrini-Green, a now-demolished public-housing project near the city centre. Students, he said, “could walk to one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the entire city of Chicago”, but they also could see “bulldozers...preparing to destroy their public housing”. As mayor, he promised, he will “retire this tale of two cities”.