Lori Lightfoot is an arrogant, oblivious mess. She’s always been pretty wrapped up in her own self…

…so she probably hasn’t noticed that Chicago is a mess, too. Other people have noticed, though – called “voters” – and it looks as if they are fixin’ to boot the first term failure if current sentiments are any indicator.

A new survey shows Mayor Lori Lightfoot trailing three challengers among voters as the election nears.

Lightfoot is facing a crowded field of challengers as she seeks reelection this February. And a new survey from The Daily Line and Crain’s Chicago Business shows Jesus “Chuy” García, Brandon Johnson and Paul Vallas ahead of her among respondents.

Twenty-five percent of respondents said they’d vote for García, 25 percent said they’d vote for Johnson and 15 percent said they’d vote for Vallas, while 11 percent said they’d vote for Lightfoot, according to a Daily Line news release.

She’s sunk so far down, one of the challengers has even suggested she won’t make it out of the first round of voting.

With the midterm elections rapidly receding into the rearview mirror, the 2023 Chicago mayoral election is looming in the distance, with nine candidates looking to unseat first-term Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Feb. 28.

“I do not believe Mayor Lightfoot is even going to make it in the runoff,” candidate Willie Wilson predicted to Fox 32.

With nine candidates on the ballot next month, it’s unlikely anyone will get the 50% plus one vote needed to win outright, meaning a two-person runoff on April 4 is virtually certain.

So. What’s a girl to do as the realization dawns that she could actually lose her cool gig and be forced back into anonymity again? What if there was no one and no reason to watch her wicked hot TikToks?

In Lightfoot’s case, you double down on calling in markers and outright perfidy when dealing with residents.

Her campaign used a tactic I’ve not heard of before and, normally, I’d think isn’t exactly Kosher as far as legal niceties are concerned. But then again, it IS Chicago, so perhaps a call to the school system to enlist children as Lightfoot soldiers isn’t out of the norm.

BREAKING: Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s reelection campaign sent an email to Chicago Public Schools teachers Wednesday asking them to encourage their students to volunteer to help Lightfoot win a second term as mayor – and earn class credit. @wttw https://t.co/TGNjlIR7Cq

— Heather Cherone (@HeatherCherone) January 11, 2023

Being Chicago, it’s not as easy as “the mayor wants help,” not helped when her campaign tried to gussy it up as an exercise in civics with “class credit” awarded.

…The email says participants in the “externship program” would be expected to contribute 12 hours per week to the Lightfoot campaign and students could earn “class credit.”

“We’re simply looking for enthusiastic, curious and hard-working young people eager to help Mayor Lightfoot win this spring,” according to an email obtained by WTTW News.

…A spokesperson for the Lightfoot campaign told WTTW News in an inital statement that the effort was designed “to provide young people with the opportunity to engage with our campaign, learn more about the importance of civic engagement and participate in the most American of processes” and “done using publicly available contact information.”

Three iterations of that email/brilliant plan later, they gave up, but not before things had exploded.

…The message immediately drew reproach from Lightfoot’s challengers, who said it was improper. Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson, the Chicago Teachers Union’s candidate of choice, described the email as “outrageous, desperate, & downright unethical.”

“Mayor Lightfoot has failed our students — now she’s exploiting young people for political gain,” Johnson tweeted. “Chicago needs a leader who’s focused on fully funding our public schools — not someone blatantly abusing the power of her office.”

Another mayoral candidate, U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, similarly condemned the move.

“Looks like desperate times call for desperate measures,” García tweeted. “The Mayor should be more concerned about fully funding Chicago Public Schools than using them as a recruiting pipeline of free labor for her re-election campaign. This is deeply problematic.”

Another challenger, 4th Ward Ald. Sophia King, released a statement that she was “flabbergasted” by the email recruitment attempt.

“This is pay-to-play except with unsuspecting and vulnerable victims. There is no lens that makes this ethical. As a teacher, I’d give her an F. Actually she’d be expelled. This is the lack of transparency I want to change for Chicago. And our collaborative approach to building better government is gaining traction,” King said.

There are unions involved and, for starters, the Chicago Teachers Union has endorsed a county commissioner who’s running against Lightfoot. He is also a union member.

…The teachers’ union has endorsed Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson in the race for mayor. Johnson is a paid staff member of the union.

All employees of the city and its sister agencies are prohibited from engaging in work on behalf of political campaigns while being paid with taxpayer funds. Encouraging their students to volunteer for a particular campaign could violate those rules, and could result in the employees’ discipline.

…Political patronage has long plagued all levels of Illinois government, with employees’ jobs often hinging on their political activities in support of – or against – specific political candidates. The practice – which gave the Chicago machine much of its power – has been outlawed after a series of court decisions that forced government agencies to reform their practices.

Lightfoot ran for mayor in 2019 on a platform promising to root out corruption at City Hall and toughen the city’s ethics regulations in an attempt to break the grip of the city’s “corrupt political machine.”

Awkward.

Lightfoot being the dense creature that she is, this brouhaha hasn’t been her sole egregious misstep nearly on the election’s threshold.

Oh, no, no, no. She’s got a whole big neighborhood of minority voters torqued at her.

Just about a week ago, our own John here at HotAir wrote about Mayor’s Lightfoot and NYC’s Adams complaining to the Colorado governor. You see, he’d been shipping his excess illegals to their fair burghs and they wanted him to stop. They said they had neither the space nor the resources to handle the influx. Well.

It turns out the mayor was making arrangements to house these illegals.

Lightfoot [D-IL] double crosses black community https://t.co/8b5MKrZpNv

— Georgia Log Cabin (@GeorgiaLogCabin) January 10, 2023

She just wasn’t being straight with anyone about where and how. And they are snorting fire.

Blacks blast Lightfoot’s plan to house migrants on South Side

With her re-election hopes in doubt, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has ignited a firestorm in the Black community after her administration deceived the media, Woodlawn residents and even Alderman Jeanette Taylor with a plan to house migrant workers at the vacant Wadsworth Elementary School.

After months of avoiding inquiries, city officials last week announced plans to house 152 migrants at a school where construction workers made $1.5 million in extensive renovations that were caught on camera during a CBS2 Chicago investigation. Chicago Public Schools told CBS2 Chicago it was just “routine maintenance work.”

The renovations came after Lightfoot two months ago told the press there were no plans to turn Wadsworth into a migrant shelter. While many believed her administration, construction workers were busy renovating the school as Lightfoot stepped up her campaign for the Black vote for city elections on February 28 with frequent appearances at ribbon cutting ceremonies on the South and West sides.

Lightfoot flat out lied to their faces and to their elected city representatives. She tapdanced for a bit. The old Texas made me do it excuse…

Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended her decision to transform a shuttered school in Woodlawn into a shelter for immigrants bused to Chicago as part of an “all hands on deck” response to what she called a crisis manufactured by the Republican governor of Texas during an interview on Tuesday with “Chicago Tonight.”

…City officials have spent $1.5 million to renovate the school, even as the mayor’s office denied officials planned to use it as a temporary shelter for immigrants beginning in October, as first reported by CBS2-TV.

…and then suddenly backed off the mess she’d created, leaving a bigger, now racially sensitive mess.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot halted plans on Friday to turn a shuttered school in Woodlawn into a shelter for immigrants bused to Chicago amid an uproar that has roiled the race for 20th Ward alderperson and exacerbated tensions between Black and Latino Chicagoans.

…Those concerns boiled over at a rally that took place outside the school on Thursday, where neighbors of the school said the immigrants should be sheltered in a predominately Latino neighborhood, not in Woodlawn, where the majority of residents are Black.

I can’t imagine why she isn’t more popular. There’s a serious financial crunch coming up as well, that hopes and prayers are expected to cover. The city’s 2023 budget has only set aside $5M to handle illegals. That’s it. Illinois state assistance runs out at the end of this month.

…Lightfoot said she was “going to be optimistic” that state officials would grant her request for $54 million in emergency funding to help the city care for the immigrants.

That’s winging it.

I can’t imagine why she isn’t more popular.