Photo: Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Amid all the attention onGlenn Youngkin’s success over Terry McAuliffein the Virginia governor’s race and what it means for Democrats in Washington, D.C., there were a number of historic and notable winners — and losers, too — in elections across the country on Tuesday.
Progressive Michelle Wu became the first person of color and first woman to be elected mayor of Boston. Wu, whose parents are Taiwanese immigrants, defeated fellow Democratic City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George, who is an Arab-Polish American, to replaceacting Mayor Kim Janey, a Black woman who was appointed to lead the city when former MayorMarty Walshwas named PresidentJoe Biden’s secretary of labor in January.
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“So one of my sons asked me the other night if boys can be elected mayor in Boston,” Wu, 36, said in her victory speech on Tuesday. “They have been, and they will again someday, but not tonight. On this day, Boston elected your mom because from every corner of our city, Boston has spoken. We are ready to meet this moment. We are ready to become a Boston for everyone. We’re ready to be a Boston that doesn’t push people out, but welcomes all who call our city home.”
Cincinnati will also have its first Asian-American mayor after Aftab Pureval, the son of a Tibetan mother and an Indian father, defeated former Democratic Congressman David Mann.
During his campaign, Pureval, 39,ran adds that featured a puppet duckquacking his first name in a cheeky reference to the Aflac insurance commercials. “When you’re Asian, when you have an ethnic name, it’s just harder,“he told the Associated Press. “You’ve got to be creative, you’ve got to work harder, you’ve got to knock on more doors.”
In a victory speech on Tuesday, Pureval acknowledged his win as historic and told supporters, “Cincinnati is a place where no matter what you look like, where you’re from, or how much money you have, if you come here and work hard you can achieve your dreams.”
Pittsburg will have its first Black mayor with the election of Ed Gainey, another progressive who spoke of unity in a speech to supporters on Tuesday.
“Let me tell you why this is beautiful: because you proved that we can have a city for all,” said Gainey, who defeated retired police officer Tony Moreno. “You proved that everybody can change. We know how people have talked about Pittsburgh and talked about how segregated it is, but today, you changed that.”
Keith Srakocic/AP/Shutterstock
Police-community relations were a major topic in the race after a city task force called for “urgent repair” with Gainey critical during the campaign of “over policing” in neighborhoods where people of color live,according to thePittsburg Post-Gazette.
“I know that when we come together,” Gainey told supporters Tuesday, “that we can build the safest city in America.”
The citizens of Dearborn, Michigan, also chose to make history with the election of Abdullah Hammoud, who will be the first Arab American and first Muslim mayor of a city with one of the largest Arab American populations and largest Muslim populations in the nation.
“Allah … has all the glory,” Hammoud, 31, said Tuesday,theDetroit Free Pressreports. “He plans. … He is the ultimate of planners.”
The son of immigrants from Lebanon, Hammoud defeated Gary Woronchack, a former country commissioner.
Abdullah Hammoud/Twitter
“To the young girls and boys who have been ridiculed for their faith or ethnicity, to those of you who were ever made to feel that their names are unwelcome, and to our parents and to others who are humiliated for their broken English and yet still persisted — today is proof that you are as American as anyone else, and there is a new era in Dearborn,” Hammoud, 31, said in his victory speech on Tuesday.
The man thought to be theoldest mayor in the countrywas also victorious in his re-election on Tuesday: Vito Perillo, 97, defeated three challengers to keep his job for four more years as the leader of Tinton Falls, New Jersey.
“I love my job. It keeps me alive, actually. It keeps me going,” the World War II veteran told PEOPLE before Tuesday’s election.
Of winning, Perillotold theAsbury Park Press, “I’m happy the election is over. We’ve got a good group of people in town and we work well together. I just want to do good for the residents of the borough.”
He quipped to PEOPLE after being re-elected, “Between you and I and the lamppost, from the feedback I got from talking to people, I felt pretty confident.”
But after one more term, it’ll be onto the next project, Perillo says: “I got to relax. I’ll probably get another job.”
Vito Perillo in his office in October.Diane Herbst
The race for mayor of Buffalo, New York, was also significant — but not in the way some expected.
Democratic socialist India Walton originally defeated four-time incumbent Mayor Byron Brown in the June’s Democratic primary but appears to have fallen short of victory in Tuesday’s election, after Brown conducted an unusually vigorous write-in campaign to keep his job.
Brown urged voters to “write down Brown” and passed out rubber stamps to make it easy for voters to add his name to ballots that were printed with just one name: Walton’s.
“This has been a remarkable journey that we’ve been on together for the past four and a half months,” Brown said in declaring victory over Walton. “It hasn’t been easy — far from it — but it’s been worth it.”
Walton earned almost 41 percent of the vote while the rest were write-in ballots, most likely for Brown. “I knew this was going to be an uphill battle,” Walton, whose campaign as a socialist excited progressives like Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said without officially conceding the race.
Two closely watched ballot measures relevant to the issues of police reform and racial justice were also decided Tuesday in Minneapolis and Austin.
In the Texas capital, voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition A, which would have required Austin to hire at least two officers per 1,000 residents, thus increasing the number of officers hired and the funding for the city’s police department.
Opponents said the measure would have taken away from other emergency services as well as suport for public libraries, mental health programs and more.
George Floyd memorial in Minneapolis.Tim Evans/Bloomberg via Getty
The measure was defeated, with only 44 percent of voters supporting it in Tuesday’s election.
source: people.com
