MISTER, WE COULD USE A MAN LIKE MAYOR DALEY AGAIN: Chaos Reigns in the Chicago Mayoral Race.

The Chicago mayoral election is today! Can you feel the excitement? Yes, we here in the Windy City, on a terminal February day in an off-off-year — the “Why are we even doing this, in this weather?” timing chosen quite by design — have been appointed to decide the fate of incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot (D — but why even bother clarifying), who is running for reelection as Chicago mayors inevitably tend to do.

The topline takeaway is this: It is extremely possible that Lightfoot will be ejected from office tonight. It’s not a guarantee, because (1) polling is so variable nowadays, especially in local races; (2) all the candidates have strengths and weaknesses that will appeal to various voter demographics in a city famously divided by them; and (3) almost everyone is triangulating their final vote. If that were to happen, it wouldn’t exactly be historic in Chicago history — it happened in 1983, more about which below — but it would be rather notable as a marker in the breakdown of Democratic machine politics within big cities, among which there are few bigger than Chicago.

And I do think it’s over for her, either tonight or in the runoff: Whether you’re a committed Leftist who thinks Lori Lightfoot has let you down by fighting the various unions and not defunding the police — while still alienating them; this is classic Lightfoot — or you’re just some guy with a wife and a kid worried about getting mugged or having masks forcibly tied to your weeping son’s face by agents of the state, you’re done with Lori.

It’s all so unfair. Nobody knows how to clean up a city like Lightfoot: