BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George has advanced to earn a spot in November’s mayoral election and will face off against fellow City Councilor Michelle Wu.
Whoever wins will make history in Boston, a city that has never elected a woman or Asian American mayor. For the past 200 years, the office has been held exclusively by white men.
“I certainly look forward to the conversation and the debate and the work that Michelle and I will do over the course of this campaign, over the course of the next six weeks,” Essaibi George said Wednesday morning. “This in exciting time in our city’s history and future..
Wu emerged as the top vote-getter in Tuesday’s five-person preliminary election with 33 percent of the votes going to her. Essaibi George finished in second, collecting 22 percent of the votes.
The race remained too close to call up until about 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
They bested acting Mayor Kim Janey, City Councilor Andrea Campbell, and John Barros, the city’s former economic development chief.
“This is about our city, this is about our future, this is about the people of Boston,” Essaibi George said during a rally after the polls closed on Tuesday night.
Essaibi George describes herself as a first-generation Arab Polish-American.
“My father, an Arab, a Muslim, an immigrant in this country, said to me as a young girl, ‘An Arab girl with an Arab name will win nothing in this city,” Essaibi George recalled. “This city has changed but still has so much more work to do and I’m committed to that grind.”
The mayoral election will take place on Nov. 2.
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