Photo caption: l to r: Ronnie Mosley and Cornell Dantzler
Although the final election results will not be officially certified for two weeks, activist Ronnie Mosley declared victory in the 21st Ward aldermanic race with a total of 6,133 votes, or 51.3 percent on election night.
Mosely vowed to unify his ward and expand his coalition to include everyone including those who voted against him.
His opponent, Cornell Dantzler, received 5,825, or 48.47 percent with 93 percent of the precincts reporting.
“I am honored to have been elected Alderman of the 21st Ward,” said Mosley. “This was a groundswell campaign that was built on a shared vision, and I’m incredibly thankful to the voters, volunteers, endorsers and staff who made this a winning campaign.
“Now our goal is to bring everyone together so we can build our community with business growth, resources for youth and seniors, and smart solutions for public safety,” Mosley said in a statement.
Also winning his aldermanic race was 6th Ward candidate Rev. William Hall. According to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, he received 5,550 votes, for 58.66 percent of the vote to challenger Rev. Richard A. Wooten’s 3,911 votes or 41.34 percent.
Rev. Wooten, who is pastor of the Gathering Point Universal Ministries, is a retired Chicago policeman. A total of 9,801 voters cast their votes out of the 31,301 registered in the Sixth Ward.
When contacted, Rev. Hall, 38, who is pastor of the St. James Community Church, said, “I am grateful for the opportunity to work with residents to build the ward that we expect and deserve.”
Asked what are his plans to bring unity and transformation to the Sixth Ward, Rev. Hall said, “I will be focusing on what people said they wanted like a safer community, better schools, driving small businesses into the ward and helping new businesses to start. I am grateful for this moment to be a part of Chicago history.”
When asked about the youth turnout, Max Bever, the spokesperson for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said the youth voter turnout was slightly higher than the February 28th general election. He said normally the youth voters come out during presidential elections.
Bever said in the April 4th runoff the youth turnout looked slightly better. “We did see some improvements with younger voters compared to February 28th. “Where we saw the most improvement in the age group turnout were voters ages 25-34 but especially the voters ages 35-44. Those totals evened out comparable to February 28th where we saw voters ages 55 and up driving more of the results,” he explained.
Bever said there was a similar turnout for voters ages 18 to 24. “It is a slight improvement, but it looks like that is close to about four percent of the total ballots cast where things stand tonight, April 4. Unfortunately, that is a stubborn low turnout decade after decade for younger voters in municipal elections.
“Those voters ages 18-24 turn out for presidential elections,” said Bever. “That is generally where we see those voters turn out at 60, 70 even 80 percent turnout for midterm elections, but for some reason, younger voters don’t turn out for the municipal elections.” Bever said their turnout was similar to the February 28th general election.
Here is the Board’s youth voter turnout for the April 4th runoff election:
18-24: 14,070 ballots cast – 3.30%
25-34: 63,108 ballots cast – 14.79%
35-44: 68,567 ballots cast – 16.07%
45-54: 65,951 ballots cast – 15.45%
55-64: 79,031 ballots cast – 18.52%
65-74: 79,317 ballots cast – 18.59%
75+: 55,959 ballots cast – 13.11%
