Harris v. O'Neill Burke Race For State’s Attorney Too Close To Call

CHICAGO — With the polls closed on this year's presidential primary election, Democratic Party voters have selected the party's nominee to succeed two-term Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx as the people's representative in the nation's second-largest criminal court system.

In a closely watched race, Clayton Harris III was backed by party officials against a well-financed effort by Eileen O'Neill Burke.

With about 85 percent of the votes in, O'Neill Burke led Harris by 51 percent to 49 percent, with the race too close to call.

Fewer than 10,000 votes separate the two, as they await the counting of more than 100,000 mail-in ballots.

In speeches to their supporters Tuesday night, both candidates said they wanted to ensure a full accounting of the votes.

O'Neill Burke walked away from her job as a judge to enter the state's attorney race because she "did not want to give up on Chicago," she said.

"I learned that in every neighborhood, in every town in Cook County, people of every race, creed, religion, ideology and orientation, we all want the same thing. We want a fair and effective justice system. We want a fair criminal justice system. We want illegal guns and assault weapons off of our streets," O'Neill Burke said.

"We want less crime and safer communities, not by locking everybody up, but by turning people around," she said. "While we cannot declare a victory yet, I know that every single assistant state's attorney, past or present, knows that feeling of pride when they stand up in court and say, 'I am here on behalf of the people of the state of Illinois.'"

Harris told supporters the focus of his campaign has been that safety and justice are not mutually exclusive.

"We can do more than one thing at a time here in Cook County. Justice is not a solitary pursuit, but a collective endeavor requires the engagement and collaboration of every single member of our community. And we're working hard to make that vision a reality," Harris said.

"Let's march forth, hand in hand, towards a future where safety and justice are not just aspirations, but the reality here in Cook County," he said. "Thank you all, we will have a lot more to say once all of the votes are counted."

The Candidates

Harris is a longtime government staffer for the city of Chicago and state of Illinois who later worked as a consultant and lobbyist in the private sector.

Burke spent a decade as a line prosecutor for the state's attorneys' office before becoming a criminal defense attorney and then a judge.

Harris was backed by the endorsements from more elected officials, including a half-dozen members of Congress, more than a dozen state legislators, a majority of the Cook County Board and Board President and Toni Preckwinkle, who also chairs the county party.

A consultant, lobbyist and lecturer in public policy at the University of Chicago who previously worked as a senior staffer to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Harris has looked to represent a continuation of the progressive policies initiated by Foxx, a Preckwinkle protégé, who announced last year she would not run for a third term.

O'Neill Burke has been endorsed by a smaller group of elected officials, including a handful of suburban mayors, as well as the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald. But her campaign has been financed by far larger individual contributions, with several six-figure cash infusions coming courtesy of wealthy donors with well-documented histories of contributions to Republican causes.

With the campaign highlighting differences in the candidates' approaches to bail reform and prosecutorial discretion, O'Neill Burke has sought to position herself as the potential chief prosecutor more focused on crime prevention through stricter enforcement.

Touting her decades of courtroom experience, she pledged to reverse Foxx's policy of declining to pursue felony charges unless the value of allegedly stolen merchandise exceeds $1,000, more than three times the minimum state law requires to approve a felony charge.

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Polling leading into the final weeks of the race showed a close contest, with a hefty share of the electorate still undecided.

While neither Harris, a South Side resident and self-described "military brat" who moved to Chicago after law school, nor O'Neill Burke, a Northwest Side native raised by a single mom and unrelated to the convicted former alderman, entered the race as a household name, the Democratic Party primary is expected to effectively decide the county's next prosecutor.

The winner of the primary will square off against Bob Fioretti, a former alderman running his sixth campaign in the past decade and first as a Republican, and Libertarian candidate Andrew Charles Kopinski, a Leyden Township attorney and account.