Chicago Mayoral Election

Chicago Mayoral Election - The City Council was sure to see some serious upheaval this election cycle, and the competitiveness of the fights for alderman is showing in tonight’s results: fourteen of the 50 wards appear set to head to runoffs on April 5.

There are still around fifty precincts still waiting to report around the city, but races around Chicago are yet to be determined. And many incumbent aldermen will be facing heated competition in those races six weeks from now.

Ald. Freddrenna Lyle in the 6th Ward will be facing off with Roderick T. Sawyer, son of former mayor Eugene Sawyer. In the 50th, Bernie Stone, the council’s oldest alderman, won only 37 percent of the vote in his five-person race, and will have to take on feisty challenger Debra L. Silverstein, who came in second with 33 percent.

A couple of very crowded races will be significantly narrowed down. The race to replace Helen Shiller in the 46th had eleven candidates on the ballot — James Cappleman and Molly Phelan both won just shy of twenty percent, and will compete for the sixty percent of the vote their nine other candidates split in today’s vote. And in the 24th Ward, incumbent Sharon Denise Dixon and challenger Michael D. Chandler emerged from a field of 18 candidates, the least among whom won only 37 votes.

And as mentioned earlier in the night, Che “Rhymefest” Smith is headed for a runoff with incumbent Willie Cochran in the 20th. Rey Colon narrowly avoided a runoff in the 35th Ward, and Ameya Pawar pulled off the upset win in the 47th, beating Tom O’Donnell without requiring a runoff.



Emanuel needed more than 50 percent of the vote to win. 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.Chico had 24 percent of the vote compared to 9 percent for both del Valle and Braun. HuffPost Chicago will be live blogging about the Chicago elections now until the results come in Tuesday night. Stay tuned.

Former White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel appears to have a new title: Chicago’s mayor-elect.

With 84 percent of the precincts counted, Emanuel has 55 percent of the vote in Tuesday’s mayoral election.

If those numbers hold, Emanuel would win the race outright, avoiding another six weeks in a runoff. CNN was projecting him to do so.

Emanuel appears to be riding a $12 million media blitz, a near endorsement from President Obama and the full endorsement of former President Bill Clinton to a one-and-done victory over three major rivals.

In second place was former school board chief Gery Chico, with 24 percent. Former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and City Clerk Miguel del Valle each had 9 percent.

With Braun coming in behind del Valle, Emanuel was poised to capture a big enough chunk of the black vote to close out Chicago’s first wide-open mayor’s race in 64 years.