COOK COUNTY — Retired judge Eileen O’Neill Burke has won a nail-biting battle for the Democratic nomination for Cook County state’s attorney, 10 days after polls closed and the ongoing vote count shrank her narrow lead to just 1,500 votes.
The Associated Press called the race for O’Neill Burke shortly before 5 p.m. Friday. She secured 50.1 percent of the vote to 49.9 percent for Clayton Harris III.
The AP’s projection came after newly-counted provisional ballots reported by the Chicago Board of Elections Commissioners did not yield enough votes for Harris in the extremely close race.
O’Neill Burke was 1,556 votes ahead of Harris as of Friday evening. She holds 264,289 votes to 262,733 votes for Harris in the unofficial results for the March 19 primary. That includes votes from Chicago and suburban Cook County.
“It was worth the wait,” O’Neill Burke said in a statement. “I’d like to congratulate Clayton Harris on a hard-fought campaign. While we may have had our differences in this election, we share a love for our beautiful city and Cook County.”
Unofficial results remained in limbo for days as Chicago elections officials counted tens of thousands of mail-in and provisional ballots, which gradually saw Harris gain ground. All provisional ballots have been counted as of Friday, officials said.
There were just over 53,000 outstanding mail ballots as of Friday evening, but many of them are not expected to be returned to and counted by election authorities, elections board spokesperson Max Bever said.
Harris conceded the race, saying his campaign fell “a bit short of our goal.”
“I am incredibly proud of the broad, diverse, grassroots coalition we built countywide with the vision of a criminal justice system that focuses on safety and justice. Where we keep every resident safe–no matter what neighborhood they live in, and where we do so in a just fashion,” Harris said in a statement.
“I said throughout this campaign that I would continue to push forward on the urgent work of criminal justice reform. That remains my commitment. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you, Cook County.”
O’Neill Burke’s victory is a win for opponents of outgoing State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, whose two terms as the county’s top prosecutor were marked by criticism and controversy over her handling of the infamous Jussie Smollett case, felony charging decisions and other policies.
Harris had been endorsed by the Cook County Democratic Party, whose leader, Toni Preckwinkle, is often cited as Foxx’s political mentor.
O’Neill Burke will now face Republican Bob Fioretti and Libertarian Andrew Charles Kopinski in the November general election.
A former prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, O’Neill Burke also worked as a criminal defense attorney before she was elected as a Cook County Circuit Court judge in 2008. In 2016, she was elected judge of Illinois’ First District Appellate Court, a role she held until stepping down to run for state’s attorney last year.
During an interview with Block Club this month, O’Neill Burke said her focus as the county’s top prosecutor would be “upholding the law” in cases related to automatic weapons charges, retail theft, robberies and other crimes.
“I would not say that I’m ‘tough on crime.’ What I do believe is that the state’s attorney’s role is to uphold the law. And I will uphold the law, but I also believe in the restorative justice programs,” O’Neill Burke said. “I’m a big believer in these programs because I’ve seen them work. Their repeat offenders rate are significantly less than the other felony trial courtrooms. They’re actually getting people back on track.”
O’Neill Burke has also pledged to prosecute retail thefts of $300 or more as felonies in Cook County, in line with a state threshold. That would reverse Foxx’s 2016 decision to charge most retail thefts under $1,000 as misdemeanors, not felonies.
Throughout the Democratic primary, O’Neill Burke was dogged by attack ads from Harris and questions from reporters over her involvement in a juvenile murder case she prosecuted in the mid-’90s.
In 1994, O’Neill Burke won the conviction of an 11-year-old Black boy who told a police officer he had murdered his elderly white neighbor in Marquette Park. That detective’s work in another case involving two young Black boys led to those charges being dismissed, according to WBEZ and the Tribune. That prompted a federal judge to throw out the 11-year-old boy’s arrest and confession, saying it had been coerced.
O’Neill Burke defended her role as prosecutor and said Harris was trying to distort the facts of the situation for political points.
“The Appellate Court affirmed the conviction, the [Illinois] Supreme Court denied review of it eight years later, the case went to federal court and federal court found that [the juvenile’s] attorney was wrong in not trying to challenge that confession. Not that the confession was in error but that his attorney was wrong in not challenging it,” she told Block Club. “Neither that court or any other court has ever questioned my conduct in that case, or in any other case.”
In her statement Friday, O’Neill Burke promised to run a “professional” state’s attorney’s office that would focus on taking illegal guns off the streets, and fighting crime “not by locking everyone up, but by turning people around.”
“The State’s Attorney’s office has a noble mission to represent victims and uphold the law. It’s a solemn obligation that I will take on with humility and dedication,” O’Neill Burke said. “Thank you for your faith in me. Together, I know we can build a safer, stronger Cook County.”
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