Bill Conway is a former Cook County assistant state’s attorney who unsuccessfully challenged Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in the 2020 Democratic primary. Conway, who runs a solar development company that “helps schools and others develop solar solutions for their energy needs,” according to his campaign website, works as a professor of renewable energy finance at DePaul University and has also served as a reserve Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Navy.

Jim Ascot is a real estate broker who is currently the president and CEO of Ascot Realty Group. Ascot, an immigrant from Greece, ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ 7^th Congressional District in 2006 and 2010.

Vicko Alvarez got her start in public service as a union organizer while she was an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago. A child of Mexican immigrants, Alvarez was born and raised in Texas. She moved to Chicago for college, and as a student, she helped campus workers organize for fair union contracts.

After she graduated, Alvarez held on to her union roots and went on to work as the campaigns director at the United Students Against Sweatshops and Lead Worker Organizer with the United Steelworkers Union. She more recently worked as chief of staff for Ald. Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez (33). Many of Alvarez’s policy goals differ from Ald. Raymond Lopez (15), who is running for reelection as alderman after dropping out of bid for mayor, particularly in the realm of crime prevention.

Born in Arkansas, Gloria Williams family moved to Chicago during the 1960s and settled in West Englewood, where Williams has stayed for the rest of her life. She worked for the Chicago Urban League and UCAN Chicago Career Service soon after obtaining her bachelor’s from Chicago State University, and then went on to create Voices of Englewood – a community organization dedicated to educating Englewood residents. Her role with the organization has had her work with “all the representatives, the state senator[s], the aldermen,” she said in an interview with South Side Weekly. “We work alongside Residents Association of Greater Englewood….and we talk about social issues, the economic issues that we’re facing in Englewood.” Beyond her nonprofit work, Williams has worked as a resident service coordinator for almost eight years at the East Lake Management & Development Corporation.

Raymond Lopez was first elected alderman in 2015 in an open seat runoff after defeating Rafael Yanez to replace Toni Foulkes. Lopez won the 2015 election with support from several incumbent aldermen, including Ald. Tom Tunney (44), Ald. Brendan Reilly (42) and neighboring Ald. Ed Burke (14).

The outspoken firebrand Lopez won reelection in 2019, again defeating Yanez in a runoff. During his first term as alderman, Lopez was a generally reliable vote for former Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s policies. But his support for the administration flipped after Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office. Lopez took immediate offense at Lightfoot’s mission to squelch aldermanic prerogative, and has since been one of Lightfoot’s most outspoken and consistent opponents. Lopez is a member of the LGBT Caucus and is a staunch supporter of the Chicago Police Department and of tough-on-crime policies.

Lopez first entered the 2023 election season as a candidate for mayor. He was the first candidate to formally launch a campaign in 2022, but on the first day candidates could file petitions for the Feb. 28 election, Lopez announced he was pulling out of the mayoral race for another shot at reelection as alderman.

Julia Ramirez works for Chicago Public Schools as a re-engagement specialist. Ramirez has been a community organizer and earned a master’s degree in social work from Northeastern Illinois University, according to a short biography provided by United Working Families, which has endorsed Ramirez in the 12^th Ward race.

Anabel Abarca was sworn in as alderman of the 12^th Ward during the City Council’s December meeting. Abarca filled the City Council seat left vacant by former 12^th Ward Ald. George Cardenas.A child of working-class immigrants, Abarca grew up in Belmont Cragin and worked as a real estate attorney before working under former 12^th ward Ald. George Cardenas as his chief of staff from 2013 to 2016 before attending law school. 

Samie Martinez previously served as chief of staff to former 12^th Ward Ald. George Cardenas and currently works as a project coordinator for the City of Chicago, according to his LinkedIn profile. Martinez attended DePaul University and University of Illinois-Chicago, earning a bachelor’s degree in public policy and a Masters of Public Health from those institutions respectively. Martinez previously conducted grant-funded healthcare research on socio-behavioral intervention at Northwestern University.

Laith Shaaban is an Iraqi American whose experience includes an appointment by Mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2020 to the Chicago Commission on Human Relations Advisory Council on New Americans. Shaaban has also been a member of Horner Park Neighbors and was a founding member of the Northwest Safety Coalition, according to Block Club Chicago. Shaaban has worked as a project manager at LGIM America, according to Block Club,  and has employment experience as an affordable housing developer and in municipal banking.

Elected: 2019. 

A Puerto Rican native, Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez has been a longtime advocate for public education, immigrant rights and labor rights. She began her career in public service in Chicago when she settled in Albany Park and acted as the Resident Director of the Albany Park Theater Project. Rodriguez-Sanchez worked there for eight years before throwing her hat in the ring for alderman.

In 2019 she faced incumbent and former Illinois House of Representatives member Ald Deb. Mell, and narrowly defeated her with just 13 votes in a runoff election. Her win ended a nearly-40-year Mell dynasty in the 33rd ward, as Deb. Mell’s father Ald. Dick Mell had previously held the alderman’s seat. She’s the first Latinx alderman to represent the 33rd Ward and serves as the chair of the immigration committee on the council’s Latino Caucus.

She’s also  a member of the Progressive Caucus. Rodriguez-Sanchez has championed progressive issues since taking office, exemplified by her introduction of the “Treatment Not Trauma” proposal, which would send social workers and paramedics to people experiencing mental health crises rather than police officers. She’s been a vocal opponent of many of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s policies and voted against both of the mayor’s first budget proposals. 

Jennifer Maddox is making her second run for alderman of the 20th Ward after finishing in seventh place in the 2019 contest. Maddox is a retired Chicago Police officer who founded a nonprofit after-school and summer program called Future Ties which aims to tackle the root causes of violence and assist children affected by violence.

Andre Smith is making his fourth run for the 20th Ward aldermanic seat. In his last campaign in 2019, Smith finished in fifth place. Smith is a pastor and entrepreneur who founded the group Chicago Against Violence,   In 2018, Smith’s campaign faced accusations of trying to buy petition signatures by offering people free turkeys for Thanksgiving and rumors existed about his campaign volunteers “bullying voters,” according to the Reader. But, the Reader further reported, Smith has been popular in his ward by taking on the jobs typically expected of the alderman’s office when service has been lacking, such as addressing potholes, organizing toy drives or interceding on residents’ behalf to contact ward staff.

Tim Noonan serves on the local school council at Kellogg Elementary School and in 2016 was part of a group that opposed an effort authored by Ald. Matthew O’Shea (19) to close Kellogg and merge the institution with Sutherland Elementary School, a plan that would have also required Keller Regional Gifted Center to move into the Kellogg building and Mt. Greenwood Elementary to expand into the Keller building to address overcrowding. The plan did not come to fruition. Noonan was behind a 19^th Ward mutual aid organization during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and about five years ago collaborated with the Beverly Area Planning Association to help fund a project to restore a monument to Gold Star Families in the Dan Ryan Woods.

Michael Cummings is a retired Chicago Police officer who retired in 2021 after 35 years of service. In 2014, Cummings was investigated by the department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs over allegations he made a racist comment that year at a bar housed in a property he owned.

Though “the allegations that then-CPD officer Mike Cummings made a racist comment at McNally’s bar ... were not sustained,” according to the Beverly Review, he was suspended for 90 days for violating a rule that prohibits CPD employees from “engaging directly or indirectly in the ownership, maintenance or operation of a tavern or retail liquor establishment.”

Cummings earned a degree in business from St. Xavier University, according to his website.

Ald. Matthew O'Shea (19) was an aide to former 19th Ward Ald. Virginia Rugai and has served in the City Council since 2011. O’Shea supported Jerry Joyce in the early stages of the 2019 mayoral election but supported now-Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the 2019 runoff over Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, alongside other pro-police leaders who believed Lightfoot’s law enforcement background would make her tenure more attentive to the needs of first responders.

But O'Shea publicly slammed Lightfoot after the July 2021 murder of Officer Ella French, saying officers felt like city leaders “do not have their backs.” Many of the constituents in the 19^th ward are city employees.

Educator Aida Flores is making another run for 25th Ward alderman after coming in fourth place in 2019. Flores works for Chicago Public Schools. She is currently the assistant principal at Darwin Elementary, and she has previously been principal at Hernandez Middle School, assistant principal at Kelvyn Park High School and a history teacher at Benito Juarez High School, where she herself went.

Howard Ray is a Chicago native from the West Side who attended Iowa State University and Roosevelt University, according to his campaign website. Ray has worked for the public sector for much of his career, holding positions with the Chicago Transit Authority, U.S. Postal Service and currently the City of Chicago, his website says. As an organizer with the West Humboldt Park Community Coalition, Ray advocated for the creation of a community benefits agreement between the neighborhood and Amazon as the company planned to open a facility there.

Michelle Harris first came to the City Council in 2006 when she was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley to fill Todd Stroger's aldermanic seat after he was elected Cook County Board President. As current chair of the City Council’s Committee on Committees and Rules — one of the three most powerful committees — Harris plays a prominent role in council politics as the rules committee oversees the operations of Council, appointments to its committees and the referral of legislation to committees. As rules committee chair, Harris is also empowered to hire the City Council Sergeant of Arms and its security staff.

Perhaps most notably in her role as rules committee chair, Harris oversaw the decennial ward remapping process that played out over a tense several months, finally ending in May 2022 with an 11th hour map compromise between members of the Latino Caucus and another group of members of the Black Caucus and several white aldermen. The tumultuous road to the final map deal came more than five months after aldermen missed a critical Dec. 1 deadline to vote on a new ward map and included several furious rounds of negotiations between the two aldermanic camps.

After she was appointed to the 8th Ward seat, Harris won reelection in 2007 with a solid majority against a crowded field of seven challengers. She has yet to face a serious challenger in subsequent reelections. Harris was considered a serious contender for former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan’s vacated position of chair of the state Democratic party, but she narrowly lost to U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly in a hotly contested struggle. Shortly after that, Harris took over as Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s floor leader in City Hall and continues to serve in the position.