Former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel easily won the Chicago mayoral race on Tuesday, beating out his five rivals to clinch the mayorship for the third-largest city in the nation.
“Thank you Chicago for this humbling victory,” an ecstatic Emanuel said to a crowd of supporters on Tuesday night, according to the Chicago Tribune. “All I can say, you sure know how to make a guy feel at home.”
At press time, 98 percent of the vote had been counted, and the 51-year-old ex-congressman overwhelmed his opponents with 55 percent of the vote, prompting The Associated Press and CNN to call the race in his favor.
Emanuel needed 50 percent of the vote to take the election outright and to avoid an April runoff, blowing past that threshold easily.
After serving as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff since his inauguration in January 2009, Emanuel left his White House post last October to kick-start his mayoral campaign in his hometown of Chicago.
Emanuel, who will become the 55th mayor of Chicago, is set to take office on May 16, replacing retiring 68-year-old Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has served the post since 1989.
“While this election was hard-fought, it was only the beginning,” Emanuel said, as quoted by the Tribune. “It’s you. It’s the hard-working, plain-speaking folks who share a love for their city and a determination to keep it strong.”
“I share that love and I am determined with your help to meet our challenges head on and to make a great city even greater,” he told his supporters.
Of Emanuel’s opponents, former Chicago schools president Gery Chico received 24 percent of the vote, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun 9 percent, City Clerk Miguel del Valle also 9 percent, Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins 2 percent, and William Walls III 1 percent, according to Chicago’s Board of Election.
The mayoral race was Chicago’s first in more than six decades without an incumbent mayor among the candidates, and the city’s first in more than two decades without a member of the Daley family on the ballot. Daley’s father, Richard J. Daley, served as the 48th mayor of Chicago from 1955 to 1976.
“Thank you Chicago for this humbling victory,” an ecstatic Emanuel said to a crowd of supporters on Tuesday night, according to the Chicago Tribune. “All I can say, you sure know how to make a guy feel at home.”
At press time, 98 percent of the vote had been counted, and the 51-year-old ex-congressman overwhelmed his opponents with 55 percent of the vote, prompting The Associated Press and CNN to call the race in his favor.
Emanuel needed 50 percent of the vote to take the election outright and to avoid an April runoff, blowing past that threshold easily.
After serving as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff since his inauguration in January 2009, Emanuel left his White House post last October to kick-start his mayoral campaign in his hometown of Chicago.
Emanuel, who will become the 55th mayor of Chicago, is set to take office on May 16, replacing retiring 68-year-old Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has served the post since 1989.
“While this election was hard-fought, it was only the beginning,” Emanuel said, as quoted by the Tribune. “It’s you. It’s the hard-working, plain-speaking folks who share a love for their city and a determination to keep it strong.”
“I share that love and I am determined with your help to meet our challenges head on and to make a great city even greater,” he told his supporters.
Of Emanuel’s opponents, former Chicago schools president Gery Chico received 24 percent of the vote, former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun 9 percent, City Clerk Miguel del Valle also 9 percent, Patricia Van Pelt-Watkins 2 percent, and William Walls III 1 percent, according to Chicago’s Board of Election.
The mayoral race was Chicago’s first in more than six decades without an incumbent mayor among the candidates, and the city’s first in more than two decades without a member of the Daley family on the ballot. Daley’s father, Richard J. Daley, served as the 48th mayor of Chicago from 1955 to 1976.
