Chicago held mayoral
primary elections. These were indirect primaries, electing delegates to conventions (with the
delegates in turn selecting the nominee).
Democratic primary The Democratic primary held on February 24. While there was a possibility he could reverse course and seek another term, by 1905 he was facing declining prospects of winning nomination to a fifth consecutive term. Even before this rise in public dissatisfaction towards his mayoralty, Harrison had only eked out a relatively narrow margin of victory in the city's previous mayoral election. Thus, Harrison decided to announce that, on November 21, 1904, he would indeed not be seeking a fifth consecutive term as mayor.
Murray F. Tuley of the Municipal Ownership League heralded a January draft effort to convince Dunne to run for the Democratic nomination, At the party's February nominating convention, Dunne was nominated by
acclamation. and was the son of then-sitting
United States Supreme Court Associate Justice
John Marshall Harlan.
Socialist primary The Socialist primary was held on March 4. Collins had received the party's mayoral nomination
in 1901 and had also run as the party's nominee for governor of Illinois
in 1904. He was also a delegate to the party's 1904 presidential convention. The Socialists were coming off of a strong performance
1904 United States presidential election in Illinois. Despite this, the party had initially pledged that it would not run its own mayoral candidate if Dunne were to run. However, despite Dunne's presence atop the Democratic ticket, the party nominated John Collins for mayor.
Prohibition nomination Oliver W. Stewart received the Prohibition Party nomination. ==General election==