Lori Lightfoot insists she was treated unfairly due to her race, gender following election loss

CHICAGO (TND) — Lori Lightfoot became the first elected Chicago mayor since 1983 to lose a reelection bid, and she is blaming it, at least in part, on being treated unfairly due to her race and gender.

"I'm a black woman in America. Of course," Lightfoot responded to a reporter Tuesday night when asked if she felt she had been treated unfairly, according to the Associated Press.

However, Lightfoot's critics are insisting her loss was a rebuke of the "woke agenda" she pushes, which they argue has done little to tamp down Chicago's violent crime crisis.

"I believe that people have just had enough," Resident Diana Dejacimo, who was robbed at gunpoint while walking her dog in December, told Fox News Wednesday. "My message has been go out and change. Regime change is the only way we're going to fix this, and I think this was a loud and clear message that this woke agenda is not working for Chicago."

In November, Lightfoot's critics lambasted her for being more concerned with scoring political points than actually controlling crime in her own city when she said she was “sick of this sh**” in reference to a mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado.

"Where is your outrage at the dozens of murders in your city every week? Gangs and criminals are running the place.... not you," ESPN’s Jeannine Edwards tweeted in response to Lightfoot's comments.

Eighty-three percent of Chicago residents who voted in the city's mayoral election voted for someone other than Lightfoot.

The Chicago Tribune called Lightfoot's loss a "political embarrassment unlike any suffered by a sitting mayor seeking reelection," noting she "went from breakout political star to divisive mayor."

"Lightfoot campaigned for mayor in 2019 by arguing crime was too high, saying she wanted to make Chicago the 'safest big city in the country,'" the Tribune explained. "But homicides, mostly from gun violence, spiked dramatically in 2020 and 2021 from 500 murders in 2019 to 776 and 804 in the next two years, respectively. Shootings and carjackings also skyrocketed."

2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy argued Lightfoot's loss wasn't just a sign about Chicago, but rather a sign for the entire country.

"We're a nation of laws and will not apologize for it. That's not 'racist.' It’s who we are as Americans," Ramaswamy said following Lightfoot's loss. "I think 2024 will be a landslide election if we get this right."