Why CORE’s re-election to lead the Chicago Teachers Union is a hollow victory
Under the leadership of President Stacy Davis Gates and Vice President Jackson Potter, the Chicago Teachers Union has become the city’s No. 1 spender on politics.
And on Friday, Gates and Potter won re-election. Their Caucus of Rank and File Educators, or CORE, received 64% of the vote from CTU members.
But a new report we published over at the Chicago Policy Center suggests this may have been a hollow victory.
Our main finding: The union’s unprecedented political spending has spurred backlash from voters. And that will cause problems in Gates and Potter’s second three-year term leading the union, not to mention the rest of Brandon Johnson’s tenure as mayor of the city.
CTU’s money is becoming toxic
The first post-Johnson election in which the CTU spent significant money came in November 2024, when 10 Chicago school board seats were up for election. Nine races were competitive. One was uncontested.
School board candidates backed by teachers unions have overwhelming odds in their favor, winning 70% of their races nationally. So CTU could have expected to win six of the nine competitive seats. But CTU-backed candidates lost six of the nine seats and fared even worse in their biggest-spending races, losing five of six contests in which the union and its affiliates put up more than $200,000 for a given candidate.
Our analysis found that across 12 CTU-backed political entities, the union spent nearly $2.9 million on school board races. And of that spending, more than $2.1 million (75%) went to losing candidates.
The substantial investment into losing school board candidates illustrates a disconnect between CTU’s leadership and the broader voting public, which is increasingly wary of the union's political posture. It’s not surprising just 29% held a favorable opinion of CTU in a January poll conducted by M3 Strategies.
I joined Paris Schutz on Fox32 Chicago to discuss our report, and how these losses signal a deeper problem for Gates and Potter in the city and state’s broader political landscape.
Additional details from CORE’s internal election win are expected in the coming days, including turnout numbers and a school-by-school breakdown of the vote.
But without a course correction, CORE’s internal victory could become emblematic not of strength, but expensive futility.
P.S. Chicago teachers fighting for access to four years of missing CTU audits notched a win against Gates and Potter last week in court, when a Cook County judge rejected the union’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. I also joined NBC Chicago to discuss what the latest Census numbers mean for Chicago. You can watch the full segment here and read more about Chicago’s population numbers here.