Voters in the City of Aurora are currently casting early votes in a mayoral primary that on Feb. 25 will winnow a five-candidate field down to two.

Under Aurora election law, if more than four people file candidacy petitions for an office, a primary is automatically triggered to reduce the consolidated election ballot to two. As many as six individuals were on the primary ballot until last week.

Incumbent mayor Richard Irvin is seeking a third term. The other four candidates are third-term Alderman Ted Mesiacos, an architect, Alderman-at-large John Laesch, Karina Garcia, the President of Aurora Regional Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and attorney, commercial real estate broker, former alderman and East Aurora School Board member Judd Lofchie.

On Feb. 17, a sixth candidate, Jazmine Garcia dropped out and threw her support to Laesch.

While it is by no means guaranteed, the April 1 ballot will likely feature Irvin facing off against the next highest vote getter in the primary. While Irvin isn’t a lock for the consolidated election, he has twice before reached the 50 percent mark with voters.

Irvin was first elected mayor in 2017 by around 800 votes, becoming the city’s first Black mayor of Illinois’ second largest city. In 2021, he won reelection running against Lofchie and Laesch, taking 54 percent of the vote. Then-alderman Lofchie was second with 1,698 votes, 24.53 percent.

Irvin garnered 3,750 votes in the three-candidate race. However, the 54 percent vote total represented less than 7 percent of the total registered Aurora electorate.

The good news for Irvin is that after two terms as mayor, he has a track record, and is running on what he says are notable accomplishments he believes should win him a third term.

The bad news is that, after a particularly high-profile primary run for Illinois governor in 2022, during which he was attacked by both Democrats and Republicans, a small fortune in opposition research is now in the public domain for opponents to use against him in both the mayoral primary and consolidated election.

What will also be different in the April 1 election, should Irvin make the primary cut, will be that he will have a single opponent. Once again it is most likely his opponent will be a current or former alderman. But unlike in 2021, voters will have a binary choice between Irvin and an alternative candidate.

Irvin attempted to avoid that back in November. His allies filed objections to the nominating petitions of several mayoral hopefuls, unsuccessfully attempting to have them removed from the primary ballot. Irvin complained that his opponents were engaging in a de facto political party in a nonpartisan election, by signing and circulating each other’s petitions.

Laesch denied that, but publicly acknowledged that he did want both Jazmine Garcia and Karina Garcia to run so there would be a large field of primary candidates with numerous ethnicities. That, he said, “allows a broader group of Aurora residents to be reached during the election cycle because more than 40 percent of Aurora’s population is Latinx, and it is important they be represented during this mayoral fight.”

Aurora, with just under 200,000 residents, has large Black and Latino communities.

When Jazmine Gacia dropped out and threw her support to Laesch, she said in a Facebook post that she quit because it was “necessary to ensure that our mission for an honest, accountable and corruption-free government continues in the strongest possible way.”

In an interview with the Aurora Beacon News, Irvin said his accomplishments in his first two terms could be summed up with the acronym SEE, standing for “Safety, Education and Economy.” He has, he told the paper, done more for economic development “than all the mayors put together over the last 60 to 70 years.”

Those who have served on the city council with Irvin take issue with that. Mesiacos said Aurora has “an affordability crisis,” and a “safety crisis.” Citing rising inflation and costs, he says Aurora “should have already started some budgetary belt-tightening.”

Lofchie also says the city needs to be more business-friendly and supportive of development, reduce unnecessary regulations and curb “wasteful spending.”

Garcia, who has made diversity and inclusion central to her campaign, says “diverse voices must be heard in decision-making processes.” She is also part-owner of a house-flipping business focused on creating affordable housing for Aurora residents.

Laesch has said there are two Auroras, one for “wealthy campaign donors and the politically connected (who) drive the agenda in City Hall,” and another in which “the concerns of Aurora taxpayers are often ignored.”

Irvin doesn’t appear to be taking any criticism to heart. In a Feb. 18 Politico article by Shia Kapos, he referred to his opponents collectively as “the small-minded opponents of mine.”