1935 Chicago mayoral election


In the Chicago mayoral election of 1935, incumbent Edward J. Kelly defeated Republican Emil C. Wetten and independent candidate Newton Jenkins by a landslide 60% margin of victory

Nominations

Democratic primary

Interim mayor Edward J. Kelly ran for election to a full first term. He had been appointed as interim mayor by the Chicago City Council following the death in office of Anton Cermak and subsequent resignation of acting mayor Frank J. Corr.

Results

Despite a blizzard, a substantial number of Chicago voters participated in the Democratic mayoral primary. Edward J. Kelly won what was the greatest plurality ever in a Chicago mayoral primary.

Republican primary

The Republican primary was won by Emil C. Wetten. Wetten was an attorney that had served in such roles as the city's First Assistant Corporation Counsel.
Mortimer B. Flynn had been president of the Pottinger-Flynn Coal Company.
Unsuccessful candidate Grace A. Gray was the first woman ever to file as a candidate for mayor of Chicago.
The primary illustrated a collapse in Chicagoans' support for the Republican Party. In the previous election, more than five times as many voters had participated in the Republican primary.

Results

Independent candidate

Newton Jenkins ran as an independent candidate. Jenkins promoted himself as a "progressive" candidate.
Jenkins had run for office before. During the 1930 Illinois U.S. Senate race he had been one of several candidates challenging incumbent Charles S. Deneen for the Republican Party nomination. Ultimately, Ruth Hanna McCormick had received the Republican nomination.
Jenkins was very openly antisemitic.
Jenkins' run was supported by the Third Party, an effort to create a new party. The party claimed itself to be spun-off from the progressive Republican movement. The party, which intended to use "U.S., Unite" as its national slogan and utilize the buffalo as its mascot, sought to use Jenkins' candidacy as a national launchpad for the party. This effort ultimately evolved into the short-lived Union Party.

General election

Wetten framed his campaign against Kelly as a campaign against machine politics. Wetten was a rather weak opponent.

Results

Kelly received 84.84% of the Polish-American vote, while Wetten received 8.08%.

Aftermath

Kelly would go on to win reelection twice. In 1947, he would forgo seeking a fourth term after being urged to step aside by the Cook County Democratic Party, which had been concerned about the prospect of Kelly losing a general election due to scandals which had plagued him during his fourteen years as mayor.
This was the first Chicago mayoral election won by a candidate hailing from the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago. Over the subsequent decades, Bridgeport would come to generate several additional mayors, with Martin Kennelly, Richard J. Daley, Michael A. Bilandic, and Richard M. Daley all hailing from the neighborhood.