Retired judge Eileen O’Neill Burke wins Cook County state’s attorney race

Democrat Eileen O’Neill Burke defeated Republican Bob Fioretti in the race for Cook County state’s attorney.

The March Democratic primary for Cook County state’s attorney turned out to be a nail-biter that took more than 10 days to resolve. When the race was finally called, retired appellate court judge Eileen O’Neill Burke had won the Democratic nomination. Tuesday’s race between Burke and Republican challenger, lawyer and former Chicago alderman Bob Fioretti for the county’s top prosecutor concluded much more quickly, with a decisive win for Burke.

With 76% percent of votes counted late Tuesday, Burke had 1,065,834 votes or 65.6% to Fioretti’s 487,778 votes or 30.3%. Libertarian candidate Andrew Kopinski received 72,081 votes or 4.4%.

All results are unofficial.

“I ran for this office because I had a stubborn belief that we could make Cook County safer and build a justice system that is fair and truly works for everyone,” said Burke in a prepared statement. “Together, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Burke promised to uphold the office’s mission: to represent victims, uphold the law and make justice accessible to everyone.

“We can get assault weapons off our streets. We can protect our communities from violence, and we can build the best prosecutor’s office in the country,” she said. “We can measure success not based upon how many people we lock up, but on how many people we can help get turned around.”

Both candidates named as their top priorities combating gun violence, curbing violent crime and prosecuting public corruption. Both criticized current state’s attorney Kim Foxx, who did not run for a third term.

Burke said she wants to ensure a “robust restorative justice bureau that gets people’s lives back on track.” She also intends to make the state’s attorney’s office “the best, gold standard curriculum for prosecutor training in the entire country.”

Fioretti said he wanted to rebuild the office with assistant state’s attorneys “who left in disgust under this administration to return at the same level of rank and pay as when they left.”