CHICAGO (AP) — Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor of Chicago on Tuesday, easily overwhelming five rivals to take the helm of the nation's third-largest city as it prepares to chart a new course without the retiring Richard M. Daley.
With 89 percent of the precincts
reporting, Emanuel was trouncing five opponents with 55 percent of the vote — a
margin that allowed him to avoid an April runoff. He needed more than 50
percent of the vote to win outright.
It was the city's first mayoral race
in more than 60 years without an incumbent on the ballot and the first in more
than two decades without Daley among the candidates.
Daley and his father have led Chicago
for more than 43 out of the last 56 years.
Reginald Bachus, the 51-year-old
pastor of a West Side church, said this was "a very critical time for
Chicago.
"We really need a mayor who has
vision. It's my personal opinion everyone else would have been a manager, and I
think Rahm has vision," Bachus said.
The other major candidates — former
Chicago schools president Gery Chico, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and City
Clerk Miguel del Valle — had hoped to force a runoff but were no match for
Emanuel's momentum and money.
Chico had 24 percent of the vote
compared to 9 percent for both del Valle and Braun. Two other lesser-known
candidates each got about 1 percent.
Emanuel's victory capped a campaign
that included an unsuccessful legal challenge to try to keep him off the ballot
The campaign began last fall when
Daley — with his wife ailing, six terms under his belt and a future of fiscal
challenges facing Chicago — announced he would not seek re-election.
Chico and Braun swiftly conceded to
Emanuel. Both were badly outspent in the campaign. An attempt to make Braun the
consensus candidate for the city's black voters fizzled.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
