Voters in Milwaukee have elected the primary Black mayor in its historical past as Cavalier Johnson defeated former Alderman Bob Donovan in a particular election Tuesday.
“Seven weeks in the past I stood in a resort ballroom very like this one and our message then was easy, we would like a safer, stronger, extra affluent Milwaukee,” Cavalier mentioned in his victory speech Tuesday night time, NBC reported.
“I additionally mentioned, ‘this metropolis is great, it’s lovely, it’s generally heartbreaking and we wanted to have a giant, daring imaginative and prescient’ and now, tonight this metropolis for the primary in its 176-year historical past has elected our first Black mayor. We did it.”
Johnson, 35, additionally the town’s first millennial mayor, defeated Donovan within the particular election for a shortened two-year time period. In line with CNN, Johnson turned the town’s performing mayor after Tom Barrett stepped right down to develop into the U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg.
The 2 males have been the highest two finishers within the February major election and ran for mayor in 2016. Johnson, who was raised and nonetheless lives on the town’s north aspect, was beforehand elected alderman to the Milwaukee Widespread Council in 2016. He was re-elected 4 years later and served as president of the widespread council.
Johnson ran on a platform of making jobs, preventing COVID-19, and public security, touting a plan to “lowering violence and making certain security” that features combating reckless driving. The town set a file final yr with 197 homicides, the second yr in a row homicides set a file within the metropolis.
The College of Wisconsin alumnus was concerned in lots of Milwaukee neighborhood initiatives and was a member of a pre-college program for low-income Milwaukee Public Faculty college students. He’s additionally given again to the Milwaukee neighborhood by serving on the Milwaukee YMCA, ACLU-Wisconsin, and the Milwaukee Neighborhood Brainstorming Convention.
In his victory speech Johnson made positive to thank those who put him in workplace.
“Most significantly I wanna thanks, I need to thank Milwaukee’s voters,” Johnson mentioned. “It’s due to you that after 176-year historical past a Black man can arise and say that I’ve been elected to function mayor, due to you.”
