Pugnacious and ever confident, Rahm Emanuel never has been one to back away from a political fight. But on Tuesday, he did just that, abruptly dropping a bid for a third term as Chicago’s mayor to instead write an undetermined “next chapter” of his life. After 23 years in politics, Emanuel said he had asked many sacrifices of his wife, Amy Rule, and their three children. In an interview, the mayor described his personal and professional lives as two planes preparing to land on separate runways, making the timing right to step away from public life. So after months of discussions with his family and a long holiday weekend spent dropping off his third child at college, Emanuel summoned reporters to his City Hall office on short notice and dropped a surprise that shook Chicago’s political landscape. “I’ve decided not to seek re-election,” said Emanuel, who took office as Chicago’s first Jewish mayor in 2011. “This has been the job of a lifetime, but it is not a job for a lifetime.” Sources close to Emanuel said the family considerations were key, but so, too, was the reality that he would spend the next eight months in a bruising campaign that would feature him getting attacked from all sides. And while Emanuel and his top aides said they were confident he could win, the mayor increasingly acknowledged the need to muster up the energy for a third term that still would be filled with challenges, from needing to find even more money for the city’s financially beleaguered pensions to having a federal court enforce changes to the city’s Police Department, the sources said. Emanuel will step aside next May after two tumultuous terms in office that have included the largest round of school closings in the city’s history, a teachers strike, the corruption conviction of his onetime schools chief, rampant gun violence that has surged in recent years, a sex abuse scandal at Chicago Public Schools, record tax increases to shore up the city’s pensions and the Laquan McDonald police shooting that led to a federal investigation of the Police Department and sagging support among African-American voters. The mayor, though, also has had his transformative moments. He has expanded full-day kindergarten and pre-K, lengthened the school day, improved graduation rates, increased the minimum wage, attracted scores of corporate headquarters, overseen a boom in downtown construction, laid the groundwork for a major expansion of O’Hare International Airport, bolstered the downtown riverwalk and managed to stabilize — although not fully fix — the city’s shaky finances. Even as he decided to walk away from the job, Emanuel displayed his typical bravado. He noted several times in the interview that he was “6-for-6” in winning campaigns and insisted he could have made it 7-for-7. “I had the option to run,” the mayor said. “I knew I would win.” There will be no run, however, and someone else will enjoy the victory next year. Moments after Emanuel’s news conference, the political scramble ensued. ANALYSIS: What does Rahm Emanuel's decision mean for the Chicago mayor's race? Who's in so far, and who's out. » READ: Emanuel's prepared remarks announcing he will not seek re-election » Many of the 12 challengers already in the race, including former police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, onetime Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas and former Police Board President Lori Lightfoot, rushed to call news conferences in an effort to wedge their candidacies into the coverage of Emanuel’s decision. Behind the scenes, many other potential candidates were making phone calls to big-dollar donors and political operatives to gauge support for a run, various political sources confirmed. That list includes: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, former White House chief of staff Bill Daley, Chicago Treasurer Kurt Summers, city Clerk Anna Valencia, 2011 mayoral candidate and lobbyist Gery Chico, Lakeview Ald. Tom Tunney and Michael Sacks, Emanuel’s close friend, confidant and top campaign donor who is the wealthy CEO of the investment firm GCM Grosvenor. Other names being floated by Chicago’s political class: former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, but there was no confirmation those three were seeking support. The mayoral election is Feb. 26. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote — a strong likelihood with such a large field — then a runoff election between the top two finishers would be held April 2. Emanuel’s decision to step away from City Hall next spring drew expected praise from establishment Democrats across the country, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Preckwinkle, who at times has been a political foe. But in other corners of Chicago — from the headquarters of the Chicago Teachers Union to the Twitter accounts of the city’s anti-violence activists, there was an unbridled joy unleashed in response to the surprise Emanuel delivered Tuesday. Eve Ewing, a poet, sociologist and a Chicago Twitter celebrity of sorts who goes by “Wikipedia Brown,” summed up the exuberance among those who long advocated against Emanuel’s policies and dubbed him “Mayor 1 Percent” for his close association with the city’s business interests and for the millionaires who have filled his campaign coffers. “I believe we will replace him w/someone better. But I also believe firmly that this is a victory NOW. He looked at the writing on the wall & it was a bad scene. And that’s because of the hard work, sacrifice and powerful organizing of a LOT of people. I’m proud of that,” Ewing tweeted about Emanuel. “If I could choose between winning the lottery and this, this is what I would have chosen.” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Sept. 4, 2018, that he will not seek a third term in office. (Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune) The decision Emanuel’s decision not to run marks a dramatic political reversal, as for the better part of the last year he had said he would seek a third term. The mayor, long a prolific fundraiser, had already reeled in more than $10 million toward a re-election bid, with more than $7 million in cash left on hand at last check. Over the Labor Day holiday weekend, though, whispers began to emerge that Emanuel might not embark on a third campaign. The mayor’s closest aides privately dismissed the talk as “bull” and “BS.” Emanuel even told some close friends who called to inquire about the rumors that they weren’t true.

On Tuesday, Emanuel put the speculation to an end, saying he decided to step away after months of discussions this summer with Rule and his three children, Zach, Ilana and Leah. In an interview, he described the sacrifices he’s asked of his family as he’s pursued his political ambitions — from his early days as a senior adviser in the Clinton administration and his tenure in Congress to his time as Obama’s first chief of staff and his run for Chicago mayor. When he moved to Washington to work for Obama, the family stayed behind to finish the school year. The same happened a year and a half later, when Emanuel left Washington and returned to Chicago to run for mayor. As an example of the personal tolls, Emanuel described rushing from his son’s bar mitzvah to the White House to make phone calls to secure the final votes needed to secure passage of Obama’s signature legislation — the Affordable Care Act. “It’s literally this: We’re still young enough to write another chapter on this journey. … Marriage is not a destination. It’s a journey, and I have asked a lot of her,” Emanuel, 58, said of Rule. “In our conversation, the things that we wanted to do and postponed as a couple, through a whole host of 23 years because of my career, we had the option not to postpone them anymore, if I chose. Amy loves the city and loves being first lady and all of that, but we have other things we want to do, and we’re young enough to put our energy into those.” TIMELINE: Highs, lows and dead fish: Rahm Emanuel's political journey » READ MORE: 6 quick facts about Rahm Emanuel » Emanuel said the decision was made over the course of discussions with Rule throughout the summer, including a trip to Arizona to visit ailing U.S. Sen. John McCain and while walking on the beach and sitting around a fire pit at their Michigan cottage. “We had optionality. I’ve run six races and won six. Nobody has gotten within 10 points of me. I know where I was financially, idea-wise and organizationally, and I know where everybody else is. We could do this again,” Emanuel said. “At the end of the day … when we were coming to the finer points of the discussion, we just decided we still wanted to do the other things that we want to do when we’re young enough to do it.” As for what’s next for the two, Emanuel wouldn’t specify. Asked if he was done with politics, the mayor didn’t hesitate. “Well, no,” he said. “I’m not done, because I don’t think running for office is the only way you get involved in politics. I just won’t be mayor. I’ll be a citizen. I care about this city.” Emanuel, though, also said “it’s too early” to rule out ever running for public office again. Asked if he might get more involved in national politics, he was noncommittal. “I haven’t thought about it. I care about my party. I care about the country,” Emanuel said. “I care about those things, but I don’t care about them right now in the way that I used to.” As for the millions of dollars in his campaign war chest, the mayor said he would return it to donors. Emanuel said he’d stay out of the political race to succeed him but would be a “keen observer.” Although he has embraced some progressive policies, such as a higher minimum wage, Emanuel’s national profile remains emblematic of the centrist Democratic establishment as a longtime Clinton protege. Facing a race in which many of the candidates are rooted to his left, Emanuel would have joined a national trend of centrist Democrats trying to fight off a challenge from the party’s liberal and even socialist wing. Tom Bowen, the mayor’s former political director, said the current political environment is unlike anything Emanuel has faced before. He said the mayor doesn’t like entering fights he might not win. “If you look at his political career, he has had an advantage in most of the races he has taken on. I just don’t think with (President Donald) Trump in the White House and (Gov. Bruce) Rauner in the statehouse and the aggravation that’s coursing through the Democratic electorate, I don’t think you can say he has the advantages he (once) had,” Bowen said. “I just don’t know him to be a guy who gets into a race where he has a tremendous number of disadvantages.” Ald. Scott Waguespack, a frequent Emanuel critic, agreed. He said the mayor’s path to re-election was plagued by a “pretty consistent downward trend in his likability” over recent months, paired with a surge of enthusiasm from the progressive left. “I thought he would probably get into the runoff, but there were a number of people who could beat him. I thought he could potentially pull it off if he spent another $20, $30 million,” Waguespack said. “I thought he would have to do the same thing to avoid another narrow election.” The Laquan McDonald factor Emanuel made his decision as the murder trial of Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke is scheduled to begin this week. That high-profile case is sure to bring about fresh scrutiny of Emanuel’s handling of the McDonald police shooting, in which Van Dyke shot the teen 16 times in October 2014 as McDonald walked down a Southwest Side street holding a small folding knife. For most of 2015, Emanuel fought in court not to release police video of the shooting, arguing the matter was still under investigation. When a judge ordered Emanuel to release the video in November 2015, then-Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez filed murder charges against Van Dyke on the same day Emanuel made the video public. The controversy led to a federal civil rights investigation of the Police Department, accusations of a City Hall cover-up and weeks of street protests that called for Emanuel’s resignation. It also left Emanuel saddled with deep unpopularity among African-American voters, a demographic that he performed strongly with in his previous campaigns for mayor. A 2016 Chicago Tribune poll amid the McDonald aftermath found Emanuel’s approval rating at a record-low 27 percent, with 4 in 10 voters wanting him to resign. A vast majority of Chicagoans didn’t consider Emanuel to be honest and trustworthy, didn’t think he was justified in withholding the McDonald video and didn’t believe his statements about the controversial case. READ MORE: Rahm Emanuel's announcement comes on eve of trial over police shooting that plagued his second term »