Chicago mayoral election 2019: State set to make history with first ever black woman governor
Women represent just 21 per cent of mayors in American cities with populations of 30,000 or more
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Your support makes all the difference.No matter the final tally, the City of Chicago is set to make history by electing an African American woman as its mayor for the first time in its nearly 200 years of existence.
Voters are heading to the polls on Tuesday to choose between Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Lori Lightfoot, the former head of a police oversight board and a lawyer.
Both women are African American, and managed to rise to the top of a 14-candidate field during the city’s first-round election in February. Ms Lightfoot led with 17.5 per cent of the vote, while Ms Preckwinkle received 16 per cent.
The two women jostled into their standings after the current mayor, Rahm Emanuel, delivered a surprise announcement last year that he would retire from public life. Mr Emanuel is a prolific fundraiser who once served as chief of staff for former President Barack Obama.
The election of one of the two women comes at a watershed moment for diversity in American electoral politics, with the the 2018 midterms bringing an historic number of women into US Congress.
Meanwhile, the burgeoning 2020 Democratic presidential field includes several candidates of colour, including the senator Kamala Harris, a black woman who is seen as one of several front-runners in the race.
On the mayoral level, there are 1,412 female mayors of cities in the US with a population of 30,000 or higher. That represents 21 per cent of all mayors in those cities, according to the US Conference of Mayors.
While that number is nowhere close to parity when considering the relative population sizes of men and women, it is an uptick compared to the number of women in those positions just three years earlier. In 2016, there were 1,391 female mayors of cities that size, representing 19 per cent of the total.
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