Lori Lightfoot (r) with spouse and daughter
CHICAGO – "“It’s not every day that a little black girl in a low-income family from a segregated steel town makes the run-off to be the next mayor of the third-largest city in the country," so wrote the top vote-getter in Chicago's mayoral election Tuesday night.
Lori Lightfoot, an attorney and former federal prosecutor, won 17% of the vote Tuesday among historical low voter turnout. Second to Lightfoot is Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, who won 16%. Next in line with 15% was former Obama Chief of Staff Bill Daley, backed by business, but rejected by the voters.
Only the top two will be on the April ballot in the Chicago mayoral runoff, and both are African-American women. If Lightfoot wins in April, she will be Chicago's first openly gay mayor. Her spouse, Amy Eshleman, and Lightfoot have a 10 year old daughter.
Both Lightfoot and Preckwinkle are outspoken liberals on social issues and either will face devastating city deficits, extreme neighborhood violence, angry public school parents and teachers, while trying to keep overburdened and weary taxpayers within the city's boundaries.
Perhaps that dark, hopeless future for the city led to Tuesday's historical low 27% turnout, as shown in this photo taken at Hamlin Park in Roscoe Village. Four precincts vote in one gymnasium. At 11:00 am Tuesday, zero voters were there when this photo was taken by Mark Weyermuller:
