Ivy Taylor Becomes San Antonio's First Black Mayor

Ivy Taylor Becomes San Antonio’s First Black Mayor

Via Reuters:

San Antonio, the seventh-largest U.S. city and the only one of the 10 largest cities with a Hispanic majority, elected its first African-American mayor on Saturday in a closely watched runoff election.

Ivy Taylor, a Yale-educated urban planning professor, won with an unlikely coalition of the city’s two largest minority voting groups, blacks and generally conservative white voters, the latter comprising just 26 percent of the 1.4 million population.

Taylor was appointed interim mayor last summer, when Julian Castro resigned to become Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, winning the seat outright in Saturday’s runoff with 52 percent against one of the state’s best-known politicians.

Leticia Van de Putte, vying to become the city’s first elected Hispanic woman mayor, has been a prominent member of the Texas State Legislature for 25 years and was the Democratic Party nominee for Lieutenant Governor in 2014.

Van de Putte held a solid lead in the May election that attracted 14 candidates, but state law mandating a winner must receive more than 50 percent of votes forced the runoff.

Taylor appealed to conservatives in the non-partisan race by stressing Van de Putte’s long ties to the Democratic Party, including co-chairing the 2008 Democratic National Convention which nominated Barack Obama, who remains unpopular in Texas.

Her openly Christian faith appealed to evangelicals, a powerful Republican Party faction in Texas.

In her victory speech on Saturday night, Taylor said, “I thank the Lord,” for her election.

Congrats to Ivy Taylor and the city of San Antonio!