Voters in Chicago will go to the polls on Tuesday to choose between two African-American women running for mayor, with the winner of the historic vote inheriting a city steeped in violent crime and wracked by fiscal woes.

Lori Lightfoot, 56, the former president of independent civilian body the Chicago Police Board and a political outsider, faces Toni Preckwinkle, 72, a long-time local politician, in a runoff to become the 56th mayor of the third-largest city in the United States.

The victor will become the first African-American woman to lead Chicago, a rarity in the United States, where only 6 percent of mayors in the 200 U.S. largest cities are women of color, according to the Reflective Democracy Campaign.

“We are in a historic moment in Chicago,” said Jhoanna Maldonado, a 34-year-old teacher, after she voted for Preckwinkle on Saturday on the North Side. “The times have changed and it’s time for something new.”

The two earned spots on the ballot after they garnered the most votes among 14 candidates in a February election. The winner will replace Rahm Emanuel, who announced in September that he was not seeking a third term.

Lightfoot would also become the first openly gay mayor in Chicago. She has never held political office, while Preckwinkle was a city councilwoman for almost 20 years before becoming Cook County board president in 2010.

Tuesday’s winner will take over a city ranked as one of the nation’s most violent. Homicides in Chicago declined by more than a quarter in 2018 from its five-year high of 769 in 2016. But less than one out of five murders were solved in Chicago in the first half of 2018, according to local media.

 

 

Reuters