Hynes Unseats Kaegi In Primary For Cook County Assessor
Lyons Township Assessor Pat Hynes unseated incumbent Fritz Kaegi in the Democratic primary for Cook County assessor Tuesday by a 317,969 to 287,955 margin with 87% of votes counted.
Hynes is likely to secure a victory in November's general election, as Cook County is heavily Democratic and has never elected a Republican to the position.
Hynes has more than 30 years of experience in property assessments, including two decades of work at the Cook County Assessor's office. He is running his campaign on three central issues: providing accuracy, restoring trust and economic development.
The DePaul University graduate plans to increase the number of field inspectors in the office, incorporate more building permit data into the assessment process, and invest in training and professional development for staffers. He also wants to improve building sketches and descriptions to generate more accurate assessments.
Hynes wrote on his campaign website that, in the current system, commercial investors cannot confidently estimate future property tax costs, which discourages investment and slows economic growth.
He argues that without a complete and accurate underlying dataset, the assessor's office can't produce an accurate valuation, no matter what model the office uses.
"Put simply: I intend to make the Cook County Assessor’s Office boring again—predictable, professional, and accurate," Hynes wrote.
Hynes also intends to create a new public-facing department within the assessor's office called the Department of Economic Development, which will partner with aldermen and suburban mayors to provide transparency in the assessment process for new projects.
He said that when there are plans to build new projects like warehouses or residential developments, the assessor should be able to model the project and offer clarity on the expected tax burden.
"We will help investors understand what to expect during construction, during lease-up, and once the project is fully operational," Hynes wrote.
Kaegi will now lose control of the office he first won in 2018, when he vowed to clean up corruption in the wake of multiple investigations of former Assessor Joe Berrios. Kaegi also promised to change a system that over-assessed lower-value properties and under-assessed commercial properties.
Cook County, it’s been the honor of my life to serve as your Assessor.
— Fritz Kaegi (@fritz4assessor) March 18, 2026
Tonight wasn't what we were hoping for, but the fight for a fairer tax system continues — and I'll be fighting alongside you every step of the way.
Kaegi ran on rising property taxes as his main issue in 2026, focusing on bringing down costs for middle-class families by "making commercial properties pay their fair share," he wrote on his website. He pointed to property owners' appeals to the Board of Review, which grants "excessive" appeals, as a reason for more of the tax burden shifting to homeowners.
The city's tax climate is a frequent thorn in the side of Chicago CRE stakeholders, who ranked it as one of the greatest long-term challenges to the city in DePaul's 2025 sentiment survey. With Hynes set to follow Kaegi after the general election in November, CRE will likely wait until they see results before believing in potential changes.
