The 1931 Chicago mayoral election was held to elect the Mayor of Chicago. Former Cook County Board of Commissioners President Anton Cermak defeated incumbent mayor William Hale Thompson (who remains to date the last Republican mayor of Chicago) by a 17-point margin of victory. Nominations Primaries were held on Feb 24, 1931. Democratic primary Anton Cermak won the Democratic nomination. Cermak was the incumbent President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, having served in that position since 1923. Republican primary Incumbent mayor William Hale Thompson warded off challenges from judge John Homer Lyle and 43rd Ward alderman Arthur F. Albert. John Homer Lyle was characterized by Time magazine as a "publicity-crazed Municipal Judge." Previously an obscure figure, his political stock had risen massively in September 1930 when he had some of Chicago's most prominent gangsters arrested under an obscure vagrancy law and attempted to keep them imprisoned by setting an extremely high bail, a tactic which failed to work. The majority of his campaign was based on attacking Thompson for his presumed closeness with organised crime, especially Al Capone. Lyle also claimed that Chicago's economic success under Thompson's mayoralty had not been due to the mayor, stating in a speech that "an Eskimo from the North Pole might as well have been mayor" when referring to Thompson taking credit for the construction of skyscrapers. Ugly name-calling took place between Thompson and Lyle. Thompson derided Lyle as a "nutty judge". Lyle called Thompson "William Halitosis Thompson" and characterized him as having the "flabby jowls of a barnyard hog, two jackass ears, a cowboy hat and an empty space between." Other insults slung around between the two included dirty rat, hoodlum, lazy bloodsucking jobber, blustering loudmouth, irresponsible mountebank, blubbering jungle hippopotamus, shambling imbecile, skunk, and a "chambermaid in a ranch bunkhouse". Independents Write-in candidates John M. Collins Otto H. Wangerin Herman N. Bundeson Charles Cutteng Dallas Killiam R.J. Williamson Carter Harrison Louis J. Orr Winfield O. Williams Judge Lagle General election Campaign With the Century of Progress approaching, Chicago would be electing a mayor that (barring extraordinary circumstances) was going to represent the city in front of an international audience. The campaign got ugly pretty fast. During the campaign Thompson made many appeals to nativism. One such example was his appeal to antisemitism by villainization of Jewish businessman Julius Rosenwald. In one speech delivered in March he said of Rosenwald, "Well,