One exciting result from Super Tuesday is the election of Vermont State Rep. Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, who Burlington, Vt. voters last night chose to become their city’s first woman and first openly LGBT mayor.
Reports VTDigger.org:”
Emma Mulvaney-Stanak was elected mayor of Burlington on Tuesday, becoming the first woman to hold the city’s top job and shifting control of the office to the Progressive Party after a dozen years of Democratic control.
Mulvaney-Stanak, who will also become the Queen City’s first openly LGBTQ+ mayor, beat out the Democrats’ candidate, longtime City Councilor Joan Shannon, by 7,612 to 6,696 votes, according to unofficial results from the city clerk.
The Progressive earned more than half the vote at 51.4%, avoiding the need for a runoff election under the city’s recently re-adopted ranked-choice voting system. Shannon received 45.2% of the vote.
Two independent candidates, Will Emmons and Christopher Haessly, garnered 273 and 205 votes, respectively.
“This is a historic day because we finally have a woman mayor,” Mulvaney-Stanak told supporters who had gathered at the Zero Gravity brewery in the city’s South End. And, she continued, “I am pretty darn sure that I’m the first out queer mayor in the state of Vermont.”
“Representation matters,” she told the crowd, which cheered, screamed and chanted, “Emma, Emma, Emma!”
“As your next mayor, I’m going to tell you the future’s bright, but you know what? It’s not all on me. It’s on all of us,” Mulvaney-Stanak said.
She thanked Shannon, praising her for her long tenure on the council. “That is no small undertaking. That is a lot of personal sacrifice,” she said.
Mulvaney-Stanak lives in the Old North End and runs a consulting business with a focus on community organizing. She represents parts of Burlington in the Vermont House, where she is in her second term and chairs the House Progressive Caucus.
She also previously served as chair of the Vermont Progressive Party.
Mulvaney-Stanak will succeed Mayor Miro Weinberger, a Democrat who has led the city since 2012 but chose not to run again last fall.
Read the complete VTDigger.org story here.
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