1991 Chicago mayoral election

1991 Chicago mayoral election

← 1989 (special) April 2, 1991 1995 →
Turnout	45%[1] 23.3 pp
Candidate Richard M. Daley R. Eugene Pincham Party Democratic Harold Washington Popular vote 450,581 160,302 Percentage 70.64% 25.13%
Results by ward
Mayor before election Richard M. Daley Democratic Elected Mayor Richard M. Daley Democratic

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v t e

The Chicago mayoral election of 1991 resulted in the re-election of incumbent Democrat Richard M. Daley to his first full four-year term. Daley had previously been elected to serve the remainder of Harold Washington's unexpired term in a special election held following Washington's death in office.

Daley won by a landslide 44 point margin. His most significant opponent in general election was Harold Washington Party nominee R. Eugene Pincham. Other candidates were Republican candidate George Gottlieb and Socialist Workers Party nominee James Warren, both of whom performed poorly in the vote count.^[2][3]

The Democratic Party, Republican Party, and the Harold Washington Party all held primary elections for their nominations. Daley easily won the Democratic primary, receiving more than 63.01% of the vote and placing more than thirty-points ahead of the runner-up, then-Cook County commissioner Danny K. Davis. Former mayor Jane Byrne made a distant third-place finish in the Democratic primary, receiving less than 5.90% of the vote. In the Republican primary, which saw participation by a dismal 10,204 voters, George S. Gotlieb, a police sergeant, defeated candidate Alfred Walter Balciunas and radio executive Pervis Spann by a large double-digit margin. James R. Hutchison won the Harold Washington Party primary as a write-in candidate as a formality to secure the party ballot status in the general election. Afterwards, he stepped aside to allow the party's vice chairman, Illinois Appellate Court Judge Pincham, to become the party's nominee