1st Latina to lead Tucson
Romero winning in early results for mayor
Tucson made history Tuesday, electing Regina Romero mayor Tuesday night, the first woman to hold the city’s highest elected office.
The Democratic city councilwoman won nearly 56% of the vote in the three-way race, according to unofficial results. Romero becomes not only the first woman to serve as mayor of the state’s second-largest city but also the first Mexican-American to hold the office since the 1870s, when Arizona was still a territory.
The Latino outreach director for the Center for Biological Diversity and first elected to the City Council in 2007, Romero ran on some big ideas, raising issues ranging from climate change to immigration.
“At a time when our national politics have been sewn with division, Tucsonans remain united by our shared desire to promote a safe, just, and sustainable city,” Romero said in claiming victory.
She has pledged to put the city on a path to be carbon neutral by 2050 and expanding affordable housing while promoting Tucson’s aerospace and tech industries.
Romero’s main competitor was Ed Ackerley, a longtime Democrat who ran as an independent. Ackerley won nearly 40% of the vote, according to unofficial results. Green Party candidate Mike Cease won a little under 4% of the vote.
While Tucson is known for its left-leaning politics and its population is about 44% Hispanic, it has not elected a Hispanic mayor since Arizona became a state, and only once before then had an Hispanic held the office.
A mother of two who was born in Somerton and graduated from the University of Arizona, Romero will now be the only Latina mayor in the country’s 50 most populous cities.