In the Chicago mayoral election of 1897, Democratic nominee Carter Harrison Jr. was elected, winning a majority of the vote and defeating independent Republican John Maynard Harlan, Republican nominee Nathaniel C. Sears, independent Democrat Washington Hesing, as well as several minor candidates. Harrison carried a 26.7 point lead over second-place finisher Harlan, a margin greater than Harlan's vote share itself.

Carter Henry Harrison IV was an American newspaper publisher and Democratic politician who served a total of five terms as mayor of Chicago but failed in his attempt to become his party's presidential nominee in 1904. Descended from aristocratic Virginia families and the son of five-term Chicago mayor Carter Harrison Sr., this Carter Harrison (IV) became the first native Chicagoan elected its mayor.