Mayor Brandon Johnson leads the pack of prospective 2027 challengers among Chicago's own public employees, but that lead comes with an asterisk: 64% of those same workers still view him unfavorably. A new poll of 475 Chicago public employees found Johnson capturing 20% of the vote among government workers, putting him ahead of every named rival, even as his personal favorability numbers remain deeply underwater within the labor base that helped elect him.
The poll, conducted by M3 Strategies and first reported by WGN-TV, found Johnson with a 28.7% favorable rating and a 64% unfavorable rating among the public employees surveyed. Despite that gap, he still finished ahead of Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, and businessman Willie Wilson when respondents were asked who they'd support. Both Giannoulias and Mendoza posted higher personal favorable ratings than Johnson, according to the poll, even though neither outpolled him on the head-to-head vote question.
The survey lands as the field for Chicago's February 23, 2027 mayoral election continues to take shape. Under Illinois municipal election rules, the nonpartisan contest requires candidates to gather and submit nominating petitions between July 28 and October 26, 2026, with an April 6, 2027 runoff triggered if no candidate clears 50% plus one of the vote, as detailed by CBS News.
Giannoulias's War Chest Looms Over the Field
Giannoulias formally launched his mayoral bid on August 2, entering the race with a campaign war chest exceeding $21 million accumulated before his announcement, per the same CBS News report. Mendoza, who previously ran for Chicago mayor in 2019, announced her own campaign on June 3, 2026, building her platform around municipal fiscal instability and public safety concerns, according to the Chicago Tribune's reporting cited by Wikipedia's entry on the race.
The financial dynamics of the race shifted further in July when reporting from WTTW News clarified that Illinois and Chicago campaign finance rules, which normally cap individual donations at $7,300 per election cycle, get lifted for all candidates once a self-funder loans their own committee more than $100,000. That threshold was crossed in December 2025 when candidate Joe Holberg loaned his committee $400,000, removing contribution caps for every candidate in the contest.
The field has also seen early consolidation. Candidate Liam Stanton, who ran a campaign branded Hit the Gas focused on economic growth and public safety, dropped out of the race on August 10 and endorsed Giannoulias, according to WTTW News.
Firefighters Favor Johnson-Backing Unions, Teachers Union Trails
The M3 Strategies poll also measured public workers' opinions of the unions representing them, and the results show sharp variance. The firefighters union posted the highest favorability of any group tested, at nearly 58%, according to the poll figures reported by WGN-TV. SEIU followed with a 48.5% favorability rating, while the Fraternal Order of Police came in at 42.9% and the Chicago Teachers Union trailed the field at 39.5%.
The firefighters' strong showing tracks with recent labor history. The Chicago City Council approved a six-year collective bargaining agreement with Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 in late 2025, granting roughly 4,900 firefighters and paramedics 21% to 25% in cumulative raises through June 30, 2027, after the union had operated nearly four years without an active contract, per WTTW News. Local 2 is prohibited by law from striking, which the outlet notes as context for the union's recent contract fight.
The Chicago Teachers Union's comparatively lower standing arrives despite its historically close alignment with Johnson. During his initial 2023 mayoral campaign, the CTU directly contributed more than $2.4 million to support his election bid, according to CBS News, a relationship rooted in Johnson's own background as a former CTU organizer and public school teacher before he entered elective office.
How the Numbers Compare to Broader City Sentiment
Johnson's underwater numbers among public employees echo, though don't exactly match, broader polling trends this year. An April 2026 poll conducted by Suffolk University and the Chicago Tribune found Johnson with a 44% unfavorable rating compared to 34% favorable among 500 Chicago residents, with 25% of respondents citing crime as their top concern, as Hoodline previously reported. A separate February 2025 poll from M3 Strategies found nearly 80% of likely Chicago voters disapproved of Johnson's performance, with his approval rating among general residents recorded at just 6.6%, according to the Washington Examiner.
It's worth noting that M3 Strategies is co-founded by Republican political operative Matt Podgorski and former Republican state representative Mark Batinick, and the firm has frequently conducted polling for conservative and business-aligned research groups in Illinois, according to reporting from The Illinoize. That history is relevant context for how the firm's numbers are received across Chicago's political factions, even as the underlying public employee sample offers a distinct data point from academic surveys like the Suffolk-Tribune poll.
With petition season underway and the contribution caps lifted for all candidates following Holberg's self-funding, the coming months are expected to bring an intensified push by Giannoulias, Mendoza, and other contenders to court the same public employee constituencies the M3 Strategies poll surveyed. Whether Johnson's lead among that group holds up as the field narrows toward February remains an open question the campaign season itself will answer.
