ROGERS PARK — Jesus "Chuy" Garcia found some friends in Rogers Park, the only North Side community where the Cook County commissioner got more votes than incumbent Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Tuesday's municipal election.
Garcia garnered enough votes throughout the city to force Emanuel into an April 7 runoff.
The mayor's support centered around Downtown, and he found many allies on the North Side. But not in the 49th Ward, which encompasses most of Rogers Park, where Garcia won 44.1 percent of the vote compared to Emanuel's 43.6 percent.
Outside his polling place Tuesday afternoon, Rogers Park resident Bob French, 70, said he came out to vote to "dump Rahm, and anyone who supports him."
The difference in support stood out in comparison to neighboring wards. Nearly 55 percent of voters in the 50th, 48th and 46th wards — a total of 15,887 people in neighborhoods like West Rogers Park, Edgewater and Uptown — voted to keep Rahm in office.
Garcia found the most support in West Side and South Side wards.
Emanuel's performance was notably poor — and Garcia's was exceptional — in the largely Hispanic 12th and 22nd wards. Garcia won 71 percent of the vote in the 22nd Ward, which covers his home turf of Little Village. Just to the east in the 12th Ward — covering McKinley Park and Brighton Park — Garcia got 67 percent of the vote.
Contributing: Tanveer Ali
