Elections across the U.S. featured a mayoral race with presidential overtones, a 23-person congressional primary highlighting Democratic Party rifts, a school board challenged for accommodating a transgender student and referendums on leadership and police issues in the Missouri cities of St. Louis and Ferguson.
Here are some of the key local races that were on the ballot Tuesday:
SUBURBAN MAYOR WHO BACKED TRUMP AHEAD
A longtime suburban Chicago mayor was narrowly leading his re-election race after he hosted a fundraiser for Donald Trump in September at a city-owned golf club. Roger Claar, Bolingbrook’s mayor for 31 years, has usually faced little if any opposition, but a union organizer and county board member who was a Bernie Sanders delegate at the Democratic National Convention was giving the 71-year-old mayor the fight of his political career. With all precincts reporting, Claar held a 62-vote lead, although some ballots remained to be counted.
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NATION’S FIRST CONGRESSIONAL PRIMARY OF 2017
The first congressional primary since Trump’s November victory somewhat resembles a continuation of last year’s Democratic presidential primary between Hillary Clinton and Sanders. Rep. Xavier Becerra stepped down from the California district to become state attorney general, and 23 candidates - including several who point to the Vermont senator for inspiration - are vying to succeed him.
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MURDER VICTIM’S WIFE WINS ST. LOUIS MAYOR VOTE
St. Louis voters elected a new mayor, Lyda Krewson, whose husband was murdered in front of her and her children more than two decades ago during a random carjacking. She has promised to fight to reduce the city’s high crime rate. She succeeds Francis Slay, who held the office for 16 years. She is the city’s first woman mayor.
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SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS SURVIVE FIGHT OVER TRANSGENDER POLICY
A slate of school board members opposed to a suburban Chicago district’s policy allowing a transgender student to use the girls’ locker room were defeated. More than 50 families are suing the Palatine Township High School District 211 in federal court, saying the policy allowing transgender students to use the locker room of the gender they identify with, violates the privacy of other students. But two incumbent board members and a former member who supported the policy, were elected.
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FERGUSON VOTERS RE-ELECT MAYOR
Voters in Ferguson, where a white police officer fatally shot black 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014, re-elected James Knowles III as mayor over a councilwoman who was trying to become the St. Louis suburb’s first black mayor. They also approved a proposal to add strict police body camera requirements to the city charter.
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