Emanuel next Chicago mayor

— Rahm Emanuel declared victory in the Chicago mayor’s race Tuesday night.

“Thank you, Chicago, for this humbling victory,” Emanuel told supporters. “All I can say, you sure know how to make a guy feel at home. It is easy to find differences, but we can never allow them to become divisions. Tonight we are moving forward in the only way we truly can. Together. As one city, with one future.

“It’s you. It’s the hardworking, plain-speaking folks who share a love for their city and a determination to keep it strong,” he said. “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.”

Emanuel’s declaration came after runner-up Gery Chico called him to concede defeat.

Emanuel needed to be above the 50 percent benchmark to avoid a runoff and six more weeks of campaigning. With 97 percent of precincts counted, Emanuel had 55 percent to 25 percent for Chico.

City Clerk Miguel del Valle and former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun both had 9 percent. Two other lesser-known candidates each got about 1 percent.

Earlier Tuesday, the major contenders fanned out across the city on Election Day looking for last-minute votes.

Despite a tremendous amount of attention on the mayor’s race and a slew of hotly contested alderman races, election officials say turnout could be as low as 40 percent. That’s far less than the 50 percent turnout officials were hoping for Monday.

Mayor Richard Daley, who was out of town Tuesday, isn’t on the ballot for the first time since 1989. He’ll leave office on May 16 when his successor is sworn in.

Chico, a former Daley chief of staff, spent the closing weeks of the contest working to erode what had been growing support for Emanuel and get into a runoff by ridiculing the “Rahm Tax.” That’s Emanuel’s plan to reduce the city’s home-rule sales tax but expand the tax base to unspecified services.

In the final week, Chico ratcheted up his TV commercial criticism, contending Emanuel was pushing the sales-tax plan because “Rahm grew up in suburban safety and privilege” of the wealthy North Shore where higher taxes might be more acceptable than in working family neighborhoods.

Emanuel, who largely avoided addressing his opponents, called Chico “desperate” and countered, “It’s not what neighborhood you grew up in. It’s whether you’re going to fight for neighborhoods.”

Though pre-election polls showed Emanuel gradually nearing the level of support needed to prevent a runoff, Chico, Braun and del Valle each had urged voters to extend the campaign and allow voters more time to digest the significant issues at hand. Among them: an increasing city budget deficit, an improved-but-still-troubled public school system, a ballooning public-employee pension debt and ways to create jobs, improve the economy and combat a perception of a growing crime problem.

Veteran election attorney Burt Odelson ended up being one of Emanuel’s toughest opponents. He claimed Emanuel wasn’t eligible to run for mayor because he abandoned his Chicago residency when he went to work for President Barack Obama.

After wending its way through the city’s election board - including a raucous hearing in which Emanuel endured questioning for more than 11 hours by citizens and activists - the state Supreme Court in late January ruled in Emanuel’s favor.

Information for this article was contributed by Deanna Bellandi, Tammy Webber and Don Babwin of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 02/23/2011

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