Chicago City Wire

Even as a stadium announcer sang their praises to a sparse Opening Day crowd, Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot were both roundly booed as they took the field to throw ceremonial first pitches during the Chicago White Sox recent home opener.

As the announcer praised both leaders for their handling of the COVID-19 crisis over the last year, none of his words seemed to matter much to those in attendance, at least some of whom seemed to boo from start to finish.

For Pritzker, it was just the latest hit in a stretch of seemingly never-ending ones as evidenced by a recent 1892 Polling survey that pegged his approval rating at just 41%, or some 30 points off a pandemic approval rating high of 70% posted just last May.

Around that same time, the governor was being hailed as “bullet-proof” after chalking up an overall job approval rating of 61% against a 35% disapproval rating.   

Other recent warning signs for a governor who could all of a sudden be on the ropes include a quarter of all Chicago residents now holding an unfavorable opinion of him as his handling of the pandemic and the subsequent restrictions he put in place has undoubtedly put a drain on his popularity.

“In other words, Pritzker will have his own record to contend with instead of running against a horribly unpopular Republican incumbent in an off-year election during the term of a fabulously unpopular Republican president,” the Illinois Times wrote.