CLEVELAND — Today is Primary Election day, and residents in several cities will take to the polls to vote for their next mayor and members of city council.
11 PM Update: Justin Bibb declared victory at about 10:30 p.m. with about 26% of the vote, and Kevin Kelley gave a speech at around the same time, confident that he would be the second person on the ballot in November with just under 20% of the vote so far. Dennis Kucinich, trailing Kelley by about 1,000 votes with 16% of the total vote, told supporters it did not appear he would be able to make up the ground to catch Kelley in the primary race. Watch their speeches from each of their watch parties below:
10:10 PM Update: With over 92% of the votes counted, Justin Bibb is maintaining a commanding lead with 26% of the total vote. Kevin Kelley, with 19% of the vote, pulled slightly ahead of Dennis Kucinich's 17%, according to unofficial results from the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
9:40 PM Update: With about 40% of outstanding ballots counted, Bibb has retained a six point lead over the next candidates and has 24.5% of the total vote. Kevin Kelley and Dennis Kucinich are still tightly locked for the second spot on the ballot in November, with 16.84% and 16.41% of the vote, respectively. They are less than 100 votes apart.
News 5's John Kosich has the latest election update in the player below:
Where can I find results?
Unofficial results for the Cuyahoga County Primary Election will be updated live here throughout the night.
The Cleveland Mayoral Race
Two of the seven candidates will face each other in November in the General Election. The seven candidates are: Justin Bibb, Ross DiBello, Basheer Jones, Kevin Kelley, Dennis Kucinich, Zack Reed and Sandra Williams. News 5 sat down with each candidate and asked them questions on a wide range of issues, which included the West Side Market, Cleveland’s lakefront, Cleveland stadiums, plans to bring jobs to Cleveland, their vaccination status, housing and education. Click here for our coverage of the race.
Also in Cleveland, voters will decide the contenders for city council positions in Wards 1,2,3,4,5,7,8,11,12 and 17.
Voter turnout
You can track it here.
Who's voting?
The following cities have primary elections today: Bay Village, Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, East Cleveland, Garfield Heights, Lakewood and Solon.
Voters in Solon will select who competes for the Ward 4 seat, and in Lakewood, voters will select who competes in November for a municipal court bench seat for the upcoming term.
More to come
We’ll have results on the Cleveland Heights first mayoral race and council races, and others, online tonight and at News 5 at 11.
Previous updates:
8:40 PM Update: With about 4% of the Election Day ballots counted, Bibb's lead narrowed slightly to 24.22% of the total. Kevin Kelley and Dennis Kucinich are neck-and-neck for second place, with about 18% of the vote and less than 70 votes separating them.
8:20 PM Update: With the early in-person votes tallied and vote-by-mail ballots partially reported, Justin Bibb is currently leading the primary contest with 25% of the vote. Kevin Kelley and Dennis Kucinich are close behind, each with about 20%.
More votes added to give us a fuller picture of the early vote (about 35% of eventual total). Bibb leading Kelley, Kucinich pic.twitter.com/ZmRZxI1Y40
— John Kosich (@KosichJohn) September 15, 2021
WOW!!!! Get ready for a long night first round of early votes in Kucinich leads Kelley by 23 votes and Bibb by just 42! pic.twitter.com/1uUBnchoqW
— John Kosich (@KosichJohn) September 15, 2021
Cleveland's voter rich far West side Ward 17 the leader with 28.3% turnout pic.twitter.com/iECCUrAzx0
— John Kosich (@KosichJohn) September 14, 2021
The polls are now closed and 15 percent of Cleveland's eligible voters (38,350 of 247,742) have voted for the city's next mayor. Who will make the top two the first 35 percent of the vote to drop shortly with the early vote.
— John Kosich (@KosichJohn) September 14, 2021
As of 7 p.m. turnout in Cleveland is at 14 percent. 35 percent of the vote cast so far was absentee (the numbers we'll see around 8 p.m.) 65 percent are election day votes which will start coming in 8:45 or so.
— John Kosich (@KosichJohn) September 14, 2021
A look at 4:30 p.m. turnout percentage by Ward with map of where the Cleveland mayoral hopefuls call home. pic.twitter.com/kwZi5rRaus
— John Kosich (@KosichJohn) September 14, 2021
Snapshot of turnout in Cleveland mayoral primary, strongest Election Day turnout two hours in in the West side wards pic.twitter.com/4wVvUw0xrN
— John Kosich (@KosichJohn) September 14, 2021
Follow John Kosich on Twitter for Cleveland mayoral primary coverage today.
Recommended reporter follows for Cleveland primary election coverage today/tonight: @NickCastele @SceneSallard @SethARichardson @KosichJohn. Anyone I'm missing?
— Joe Donatelli (@joedonatelli) September 14, 2021
RELATED: Cleveland Heights residents to vote in primary election for city's first-ever mayor
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