Editing Jane Byrne (section)

===1979 election===
{{see main|1979 Chicago mayoral election}}

Months after being fired as head of the consumer affairs department, Byrne challenged Bilandic in the 1979 Democratic mayoral primary, the real contest in the heavily Democratic Chicago. Officially announcing her mayoral campaign in August 1977, Byrne partnered with Chicago journalist and political consultant Don Rose, who served as her campaign manager.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lib.niu.edu/1979/ii790710.html|title=Don Rose analyzes Jane Byrne's victory|website=www.lib.niu.edu}}</ref> At first, political observers believed she had little chance of winning. A memorandum inside the Bilandic campaign said it should portray her as "a shrill, charging, vindictive person—and nothing makes a woman look worse".<ref>{{cite news|last1=Yardley|first1=William|title=Jane Byrne, Only Woman to Lead Chicago, Dies at 81|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/us/jane-byrne-only-woman-to-lead-chicago-dies-at-81-.html|access-date=November 17, 2014|work=The New York Times|date=November 14, 2014}}</ref> 

Nevertheless, the January [[Chicago Blizzard of 1979]] paralyzed the city and caused Bilandic to be seen as an ineffective leader. Bilandic's ineffective leadership caused [[Jesse Jackson]] to endorse Byrne. Even many Republican voters voted in the Democratic primary to help beat Bilandic. Infuriated voters on the [[Community areas in Chicago|North Side]] and [[Northwest Side, Chicago|Northwest Side]] retaliated against Bilandic for the Democratic Party's slating of only [[South Side, Chicago|South Side]] candidates for the mayor, clerk, and treasurer (the outgoing city clerk, John C. Marcin, was from the Northwest Side). These four factors combined to give Byrne a 51% to 49% victory over Bilandic in the primary.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/chi-chicagodays-byrne-story-story.html | title = When Jane Byrne was elected mayor | work = [[Chicago Tribune]] | edition = online | date = November 14, 2014 | first = R. Bruce | last = Dold | access-date = March 30, 2018 }}</ref> Positioning herself as a reformer, Byrne then won the [[Chicago mayoral election, 1979|main election]] with 82.1% of the vote, still the largest margin in a Chicago mayoral election.<ref name="MayorGeneral1979">{{Cite web|url=http://chicagodemocracy.org/ElectionResults.jsp?election=crdd_general,crdd_1979_general_election,il_chi_mayor|title=Election Results for 1979 General Election, Mayor, Chicago, IL|website=chicagodemocracy.org|access-date=August 26, 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617050514/http://chicagodemocracy.org/ElectionResults.jsp?election=crdd_general,crdd_1979_general_election,il_chi_mayor|archive-date=June 17, 2020|url-status=dead}}</ref>