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The 2024 Democratic Primary for the Cook County State Attorney Race, a contest between former Appellate justice Eileen O'Neill Burke and University of Chicago Professor Clayton Harris III, was a close fought contest on the idiological battle of Criminal justice reform in the Democratic party,
Here, the more conservative O'Neil Burke, narrowly defeating the progressive Harris
The race came against the backdrop of the retirement of controvercial Progressive reformer State Attorney Kim Foxx retiring after a harrowing few years in which she championed deprioritizing prosecuting low level offenses, cash bail, faced a reckoning with policing during the George Floyed Protests, and faced scandal with the handling of the Jussie Smollett case
Upon her retirement, Harris inmediately jumped into the race to continue her progressive record—and in the proccess was endorsed by such names a Toni Preckwinkle, the Chicago Teacher's Union as well as the county's Progressive unions and elected officials.
O'Neil Burke, a scion of a family of police, stepped down from her position as justice to run for the seat. Herein she embrased Foxx's reforms while promising to be a tough on crime State attorney—gaining the suport of the business community and outrasing Harris 3-to-1
In the wake of her win, despite tacit support for Foxx's reforms some news outlates considered O'Neil Burke's win to be a shift away from Foxx's time as State Attorney, and towards a more conservative criminal justive posture
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