Two African-American Women Are Headed for Runoff in Chicago’s Mayor Race – The New York Times

Lonnell Saffold, the recording secretary for a local unit of the Service Employees International Union, said having two black women in the runoff shattered “a glass ceiling that Chicago probably would have never fathomed.” Mr. Saffold said he voted for Ms. Preckwinkle, but that Ms. Lightfoot had been his second choice.

The city’s votes were sprinkled widely across the massive field of 14 candidates who had hoped to replace Mr. Emanuel, who didn’t run for a third term. With 92 percent of the votes counted, Ms. Lightfoot had the highest vote tally, with about 17 percent. Ms. Preckwinkle had 16 percent, and Mr. Daley, who was well funded and who many here had expected to easily make the runoff, came in just below 15 percent.

[ This was a look at the top candidates in Tuesday’s election, an unusually wide field.]

For months, Chicago’s campaign has looked like a reunion of its best-known political figures — a former police superintendent, a former public schools chief, a former city clerk.

Among the names most familiar to voters were Ms. Preckwinkle and Mr. Daley, a brother of this city’s longest-serving mayor (Richard M.) and a son of the second-longest-serving mayor (Richard J.). Richard M. Daley, who ran Chicago for 22 years before Mr. Emanuel arrived in 2011, was sometimes known as “Mayor for Life,” and some Chicagoans thought the Daley name alone would at least advance the latest Daley into a runoff.