Winner of Cook County state's attorney primary may not be decided until end of the week — or later

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Some 100,000 votes or more are still to be counted in the close race for Cook County state’s attorney, and it will likely be days before a winner is declared in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.

Eleven of the city’s 1,291 precincts still have not reported their totals in the race between Eileen O’Neill Burke and Clayton Harris III after officials announced Wednesday evening that they had added unofficial results from nine more precincts of the 20 that were not immediately available on election night. Election officials said judges in those precincts left before the results were “properly transmitted.”

Election officials said only 1,920 additional votes had been added in the latest batch, and they barely impacted the overall result. As of Wednesday afternoon, fewer than 10,000 votes separated Burke and Harris.

Election officials said there could also be as many as 109,000 mail-in ballots still waiting to be counted from Chicago voters. In the suburbs, Cook County election officials say as many as 46,000 mail-in ballots could still be waiting to be counted. Those numbers represent voters’ applications for mail ballots, so it’s unknown how many ballots were actually completed and dropped in the mail.

Most results from mail-in votes will likely be known by Friday, but election officials said votes could continue to trickle in for at least two weeks.

Officials with the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners said Wednesday evening that both candidates had asked to review the processing and counting of vote-by-mail ballots. The first totals were expected to be released Friday evening.

Neither Burke nor Harris has declared victory nor conceded defeat.

In emails sent out the day after the election, both candidates thanked their supporters and volunteers while urging them to be patient as the “democratic process” unfolds.

Burke, a retired appellate justice, told supporters she was hopeful, grateful and “cautiously optimistic.”

“We carried the lead in votes all night, and we’re cautiously optimistic that will remain,” she wrote. “It’s critical that we allow our democratic process to continue.’

About 10 minutes later, the Harris campaign sent its own update to the campaign’s mailing list.

“We are within 9,500 votes of Eileen O’Neill Burke, and the margin between us has been consistently shrinking,” Harris said, promising “to make sure every single vote is counted.”

Burke took an early lead Tuesday night based on her strong showing in the suburbs, where she ended up with an eight-point lead. But as the night wore on, votes in the city chipped away at the gap between the candidates. Harris eventually took the lead in the city vote, with 51.19% to Burke’s 48.81%.

With the city and suburbs combined, Burke was leading Harris 50.9% to 49.1% with 84% of the estimated vote counted Wednesday evening, according to the Associated Press.

Harris, who had the backing of the county’s Democratic Party, appeared to do well in areas of the city that voted in favor of Mayor Brandon Johnson’s referendum calling for raising the real estate transfer tax on high-end property sales to generate revenue to fight homelessness.

His support appeared to track closely with State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in her last primary against Ald. Bill Conway (34th).

Like Foxx, Harris outperformed his opponent on the city’s South and West sides. Harris also won areas that have recently gone for progressive candidates, including North Side neighborhoods along the lakefront, but did not appear to perform as well as Foxx had.

While some of the wards tilted heavily to either Burke or Harris, the results in the 46th Ward showed the race was within a point, despite progressive Ald. Angela Clay winning that City Council seat by more than 10 points only last year.

Despite losing to Burke in the suburbs, Harris actually fared slightly better than Foxx did when she won the 2020 primary against Conway.

The future 34th Ward alderperson finished in second place in the suburbs four years ago, splitting the anti-Foxx vote with two other Democrats — including former Ald. Bob Fioretti, who is the Republican nominee for state’s attorney this year.

Foxx got just over 43% of the suburban Democratic vote that year.